Oh God, we pray for children who woke up this morning in dens of dope rather than in the homes of hope, with hunger in their bellies and hunger in their spirits, without parents or friends to care for, affirm, and lovingly discipline them.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children who have no one to pray for them or protect and guide them and who are being abused or neglected right now by parents who themselves often were abused or neglected.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children who are sick from diseases we could have prevented, who are dying from guns we could have controlled, and who are killing from rage we could have averted by loving attention and positive alternatives.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children struggling to live to adulthood in the war zones of our cities, who plan their own funerals and fear each day will be their last. We mourn for the thousands of children whose life journeys have already ended too violently and too soon.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children who are born with one, two, three, or more strikes already against them — too tiny to live, too sick with AIDS, too addicted to alcohol or cocaine or heroin to thrive.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for girl children having children without husbands or steady friends or lifelines of support, who don't know how to parent and who need parenting themselves. And we pray that teen and adult fathers will take more responsibility for the children they father.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children who were born into and grow up in poverty without a seat at America's table of plenty; for youths whose only hope for employment is drug dealing, whose only sense of belonging is gangs, whose only haven is the streets, and whose only tomorrow is prison or death.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for children and youths in every community struggling to make sense of life, confused by adults who tell them one thing and do another; who tell them not to fight but who fight and tell them not to take drugs while taking drugs.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

Oh God, we pray for children from whom we expect too little and for those from whom we expect too much; for those who have too little to live on and for those with so much they appreciate little; for children afflicted by want and for children afflicted by affluence in a society that defines them by what they have rather than who they are — your loving precious gift.

Help us to welcome them in our hearts and communities.

We pray for ourselves as parents, teachers, preachers, and leaders, that we will help solve rather than cause the problems our children face, by struggling to be worthy of emulation, since we teach each minute by example.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to save our children's lives.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to protect our children's dreams.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to rekindle our children's hopes.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to rebuild our children's families.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to create a sense of community and security for our children.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to instill in our children knowledge and appreciation of their traditions and heritage.

Help us.

Oh God, we pledge to pray and work to leave no child behind.

Help us.

Marian Wright Edelman in Guide My Feet: Prayers and Meditations on Loving and Working for Children