Little Angels

On Halloween last week, I saw many children on the streets for “Trick or Treat”dressed and made-up like devils, ghosts, evil spirits, witches, and ugly monsters.

My stomach churned. 

The images in my head of little children have nothing to do with those; they have everything to do with the good and the beautiful. I think of kids as angels—lovable and adorable, God's delightful gifts to one and all.  

Call it a coping or healing mechanism, but when I lost my second son, Adrian, I pictured him as an angel happily playing in that wondrous place where Jesus lives. From that day to this day, over 30 years later, I can't imagine him any other way.

Some parents who dress up their kids in ghoulish costumes say, “Where's your sense of humor? It's just for fun!”

Fun for whom? For the kids? Will they have less fun if they were dressed like the lovely creatures in storybooks and fairy tales?

Children love wearing costumes, that much I know (having reared three boys myself), but parents have the authority to choose or censor or recommend. 

I liken this to choosing which books children should read. Today I have no jurisdiction over what my adult sons read, but when they were little, my husband and I had the responsibility as parents to make sure they read only  those that would make them see the goodness in people and God.

The evil things, well, they eventually learned them on their own just by going through life. But by then, they had strong enough foundation to choose between right and wrong.   

Once I read a book written by the daughter of evangelist Billy Graham. In it she narrated about one dinner where she and her brother were kidding each other about who was the devil. Billy Graham shushed them both. He said, nobody talks about the enemy on the dining table, not even in jest—the devil is no laughing matter.

As a children's book author, I am extra careful about the concepts, the characters, the moments, and the words I write. It is my desire that the children who read my books will learn only good values from them and help them grow up into well-principled and well-grounded adults.

The world has enough advocates of evil and to even add a hint to it—like costumes on Halloween—among innocent children is unconscionable.  

“Holier than thou,” I am not trying to be. I am simply a believer of little angels born purely of grace.