Where Has Our Innocence Gone?

While I sat in the reception area of my doctor's office, a woman rolled an
elderly man in a wheelchair into the room. As she went to the receptionist's
desk, the man sat there, alone and silent. Just as I was thinking I should
make small talk with him, a little boy slipped off his mother's lap and
walked over to the wheelchair. Placing his hand on the man's, he said, 'I
know how you feel. My mom makes me ride in the stroller too.'


As I was nursing my baby, my cousin's six-year-old daughter, Krissy, came
into the room. Never having seen anyone breast feed before, she was
intrigued and full of all kinds of questions about what I was doing. After
mulling over my answers, she remarked, 'My mom has some of those, but I
don't think she knows how to use them.'


Out bicycling one day with my eight-year-old granddaughter, Carolyn, I got
a little wistful. 'In ten years,' I said, 'you'll want to be with your
friends and you won't go walking, biking, and swimming with me like you do
now. Carolyn shrugged. 'In ten years you'll be too old to do all those
things anyway.'


Working as a pediatric nurse, I had the difficult assignment of giving
immunization shots to children. One day, I entered the examining room to
give four-year-old Lizzie her needle. 'No, no, no!' she screamed. 'Lizzie,'
scolded her mother, 'that's not polite behavior.' With that, the girl yelled
even louder, 'No, thank you! No, thank you!


On the way back from a Cub Scout meeting, my grandson innocently said to my
son, 'Dad, I know babies come from mommies' tummies, but how do they get
there in the first place?' After my son hemmed and hawed awhile, my grandson
finally spoke up in disgust, 'You don't have to make up something, Dad.
It's okay if you don't know the answer.'


Just before I was deployed to Iraq , I sat my eight-year-old son down and
broke the news to him. 'I'm going to be away for a long time,' I told him.
'I'm going to Iraq .' 'Why?' he asked. 'Don't you know there's a war going
on over there?'


Paul Newman founded the Hole in the Wall Gang Camp for children stricken
with cancer, AIDS, and blood diseases. One afternoon, he and is wife, Joanne
Woodward, stopped by to have lunch with the kids. A counselor at a nearby
table, suspecting the young patients wouldn't know Newman was a famous movie
star, explained, 'That's the man who made this camp possible. Maybe you've
seen his picture on his salad dressing bottle?' Blank stares. 'Well, you've
probably seen his face on his lemonade carton.' An eight-year-old girl
perked up. 'How long was he missing?'


God's Problem Now. His wife's graveside service was just barely finished,
when there was a massive clap of thunder, followed by a tremendous bolt of
lightning, accompanied by even more thunder rumbling in the distance. The
little, old man looked at the pastor and calmly said, 'Well, she's there!’