| From Nothing to Everything (Rick Shaffer) |  |
I don't remember anything about my early childhood except that when I was 8 years old my Father decided he didn't want me anymore and took me and my older brother from Pennsylvania to Michigan to a family we never met, left us with them and never returned.
That experience generated 23 years of hatred for my Father, and prompted some 40 poems from me - one of which is reproduced here:-
Like Children
How dear and precious is a child to me,
A lesson for this oft' proud heart to learn,
Of beauty that is simple, trusting, free,
O'er which a multitude of people yearn.
We wish for just an hour we could regain,
The wonder and the joy that childhood knows,
Forgetting all our failure and the pain,
Yet in our hearts a frosty coldness grows.
And all the years we never can recall,
Are felt with deep remorse and in regret,
We sit and stare so blankly at the wall,
And somehow feel there must be some hope yet.
Then from the shadows of our life we hear,
A message clear and simple to our mind,
Of childlike faith in Him who is so dear,
Who died a cruel death for all mankind.
With tears we come before Him soiled with sin,
And know the cleansing touch He died to give,
As youth eternal bubbles up within,
From death we rise and really start to live.
Oh, let us ever be like children here,
And putting off our foolish prideful ways,
Keep minds and hearts and spirits free and clear,
To love and serve the Master all our days.
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