A Little Girl Prays for Iran

By Veronica

I was sitting at the computer, looking at pictures of the election protests in Iran. My four-year-old daughter was up past her bedtime, due to a late nap. She saw the photos on the screen and clambered into my lap. “What’s that picture of, Mommy?”

“That is a picture of people in a country called Iran. Those people voted for a certain man to be president, but the government does not want to let that man be president. So those people are marching through the streets to show they are not happy.”

A civics lessons for a four-year-old. Not easy.

She looked at the photo of thousands of people streaming under the Azadi Tower, demanding that their votes be fairly counted. A four-year-old’s thoughts are inscrutable.

My husband was now standing behind me, also looking at the photo.

“Let’s pray for those people,” I said, reaching up for his hand and holding her a little closer in my lap. I took a breath.

“No! I want to say the prayer!” she interrupted.

We held on to each other, and, with a little coaching from her mother, she managed, “Dear Jesus, thank you for Iran. Please give them peace.”

Real peace is not just the absence of conflict; it is the presence of justice.

Amen.

When Veronica is not explaining democracy to her children, she blogs at Toddled Dredge.