One Child Too Many

You know how dreams are. They don't always make a whole lot of sense. Neither did this one, until I got to the end. Suddenly I found myself bolting to a sitting position with my eyes wide. I've got to remember this! This is important! I must write it down. Well that is easier said than done when you are in someone else’s house –unfamiliar territory, you know and you don't want to wake anyone.

               Well, apparently ‘I’ was in charge of some sort of get together for kindergarteners’.  The real “me” doesn't fit the image of tall, dark-haired, slender, but we'll let that pass. Off and on all evening more and more children were being dropped off while the parents were involved elsewhere in the building. A little boy was handed to me with strange, almost haunted eyes. I had the gut squeezing feeling that no one would be returning to pick him up, but with no proof, and in the confusion of the moment couldn't have done anything about it anyway. As the crowd of youngsters swelled, assistants appeared out of nowhere. (Well, you know how it is in dreams!) It was getting late and one little girl by the name of Sherry was getting anxious to see her mother again. She had flung herself over a little pink princess bed, and I sat down beside her to offer words of consolation. “Your Mommy and Daddy will come soon.”
Just then someone came to the door, and I weaved my way through the masses of little people to meet her.

               (Ok, now it’s time to sit up and take notice. This is the important part.)

               “Hello, I am Ms. Gilbert. I came to pick up Sherry.” My face; in fact my whole body stiffened.  This was not Sherry’s Mom.

               “I’m sorry, I can’t send her with you unless I call her parents first. “ Ms. Gilbert laughed awkwardly and looked about to show identification, then apparently thought better of it. (Or maybe she didn’t have anything.)

               She pretended to poke me, teasingly. “She must be your child.”

               “No, she’s not,” I replied. “But if only ONE child in the world ended up being kidnapped, that would be one child too many."

               Then I sat up, startled into wakefulness. We are God’s children. Satan wants to kidnap us out of His care. But that’s how our Heavenly Father feels: If even one of all of His thousands of children would be snatched back into Satan’s kingdom that is one child too many.