Walking Between The Raindrops: Faces of evil

When a mother has a child - most mothers, I believe - she looks into the face of that child, into their eyes, and all she can see is the work of God in her life, in her arms. She sees hope and promise and perfection. As the child grows, she prays for its safety, health and a good life. She prays that it never wants, is never hurt and that only good things will come in that child's life. It doesn't matter if it's her first child or her tenth (or more). Every new life holds that promise and those prayers in her heart.

Still, we all know that no child grows up free from pain or sickness or temptations. As parents and adults, we didn't make it this far without some heartbreak, various illnesses - some life threatening - or mistakes in judgment. Still, we plan and guide and nurture our children as best we can. We pray to our God for mercy and protection and blessings that our children will grow up to be better people than we are; to have love everlasting and make the world a better place. Thankfully, most children do grow up to be happy, healthy and living good lives their parents are proud of. By the Grace of God, Paul and I have been fortunate with our six children. We pray for them every day, just like other parents do around the world for their children. What we don't pray for is that our childrens' lives turn out like the ones in the pictures below. One newspaper called them the "San Antonio Five". I call them the faces of evil.