Starved For Love

Most of us are starved for love. This is painfully true of children of and the poor. First let us consider the children from divorce. They often feel isolated. They may wear a smile but inside they're miserable. To cope with their pain, they may withdraw, become angry, and fight with whoever crosses their path. Or they may clown around greatly, or conform to peer pressure to minimize how "different" they feel from everyone else.

Pastor John asked a child how she honestly felt about the divorce of her parents. Here is the answer he received.

"I wonder if my father and mother ever really loved each other. Isn't love supposed to last forever? I don't know why my father and mother got married? I used to think I was adopted; they were fighting all the time? Where did they have the time to have me? I think it was my fault, because I heard father and mother fighting over me. What if I was a boy would my father have divorced my mother? Sometimes I'm relieved my parents are divorced. Then I feel guilty. Shouldn't I want them to be together? My parents divorced, so I'll never get married. Love and marriage just don't work. My parents are Christians, and they couldn't make it work, so there's no hope for me. I love my mother, but father doesn't love her anymore."

One golden rule for divorced parenting is this: Give children the freedom to love their other parent. No matter how clear the ex-husband's faults, no matter how rotten or terrible the marriage was, a child needs to be able to choose to love and admire both parents. For when one parent is constantly criticized in effect the child is being criticized as well.

Parents who aren't getting along will fight over the issues involved in parenting. To a child listening behind doors, it may seem every fight is his or her fault. Younger children are more likely than older children to blame themselves for a divorce, but all children need to know most arguments about them result from problems in the marriage , not the other way around.

Children, by definition, lack maturity. They don't know how to "be angry and not sin" (Eph. 4:26). Many times they can't even verbalize why or at whom they're angry. Children need to be educated that anger is natural. We can't control our feelings. But we can control our actions and talk about what hurts us and our reactions to our hurt. Ask direct questions: "Are you angry because your father doesn't care for you? Are you angry because you think your mother's spending too much time at work?" By analyzing what they're feeling, children can begin to recognize and master that powerful emotion. The secret of happy home is that members of the family learn to give and receive love.

Do take the time to consider the plight of rural poor children and under God decide to take some concrete steps to share the love of Christ with them. For protecting the interests and welfare of children who cannot speak for themselves is very important for the church and the society at large. In India about 320 million children are below the age of 14 years. Millions of children from poor families are forced to join the labour force even as early as eight years of age. According to some estimates, at least 40 million children work as child labourers. Of this over 15 million of them are Dalits-are bonded child labourers.

More than 60 percent of the child labour in India is employed in agriculture. Several industries, such as match and firework factories, local "beedi" or cigarette plants and carpet manufacturing facilities, are the usual employers of child labour. Child labourers are beaten, physically confined to deplorable living quarters, uncared for when sick and given very little to eat.

Thousands of young children and women from poor families are sold to the "flesh markets" in major cities like Mumbai. Sexual bondage and exploitation are such common occurrences that our sensibilities are be numbed so that we are neither surprised nor enraged when we hear or read about such common occurrences.

Many children are also victims of abuse -physical, sexual and emotional, and are robbed of the innocence of childhood. Remarried mothers may at times be reluctant about protesting sexual abuse by their husbands against stepchildren. Financial dependency is also another reason for parents overlooking such acts by others against their children.

Themes such as sexual intercourse or sexual abuse are all known by poor children. The majority live in one small room at home, witnessing every thing that constitutes family life, including sexual relations between parents. Children are only too familiar with drunken brawls, spousal abuse, theft, rape and even murder if not in the immediate family, then in the neighbours' house or in the community. What the wealthy people may consider the substance of movies is real life for rural poor children.

Educating the poor is an opportunity for Christians to share the love of Christ without discrimination. Some schools engaged in helping the poor start separate low cost Hindi medium education schools. Isn't this a form of segregation or exclusion of the poor from the main stream? Helping the poor is Christ's mandate to His community. On whose side are we? Who benefits from our educational systems -the rich and the resourceful or the poor? The larger issue is that of that of identity and worth. Let us explore this further.
Identity answers the question 'Who am I?' while dignity answers the question 'What am I worth?' The Bible makes the question of identity the prior question. It emphasizes that both the creation of humanity and redemption are acts of God's grace. There are no human elements however meritorious or sinful involved in our creation or redemption. Grace confers identity. Identity in the secular system tends to be grounded in worth, in the accomplishments of a person; in his victories and failures. The poor, probably, are already condemned as failures even by Christian institutions who serve the rich and offer crumbs to the children of the poor. When worth becomes the basis for determining identity the poor and the weak are marginalised. Christ loves the poor.

In Hinduism, identity is determined by caste hierarchy into which a person is born. In the Indian society caste is the most tyrannical way of controlling and annihilating the status of a person. This is what Pastor Joseph narrated when he was invited to a Christian school to take sessions for teachers on Value Education.

"To my surprise when I discussed with the teachers that all human beings are equal a few high caste Hindu teachers sitting right in front started shaking their head in disagreement."

Human dignity cannot be given to a person by the kindness of others. It involves equality, freedom and economic empowerment and relations of mutual respect among people and a conscious participation in the life of the society. Economic projects as such do not help the poor people develop the crucial sense of self-worth. This makes the gospel so vital for change. The gospel transforms the perception of the poor from worthless failures to an appreciation that in Christ they have their own and other people's worth.

The community of Christ is duty bound to exemplify the love of Christ to children starved for love.