Why Are So Many Kids Missing?

Okay, I know there are lots of kids who go missing, and at the time I can’t recall the statistic of how often a child is taken, but lately it seems there’s been a lot of news stories about missing children.  There are the good ones with the happy endings — like Jaycee Dugard, Shawn Hornbeck, and Elizabeth Smart, who recently testified at a recent hearing to determine her kidnapper’s competency to stand trial.  Those stories I don’t mind.  It’s the ones where the kids are taken that upset me, and it’s even worse when the story ends badly, like a majority of them do.  I’m not talking about the 7-year-old kid who hid in a closet while his parents led police on a wild goose chase over their experimental weather balloon device.  I’m talking about stories like 7-year-old Somer Thompson, whose body was recently found in a Georgia landfill, and missing Virginia Tech student Morgan Harrington.  As a mother, you nurture your child from the time she is in your womb, then as a baby, and into adulthood.  It never stops.  My mother to this day still nurtures me.  And for some monster to come and take that all away — it’s all I can do to keep from flying into a rage whenever I think about it.  I cried when I heard about little Somer’s body being found.  I can’t imagine her parent’s grief.  My own daughter is almost the same age, and I would be so lost and distraught if she — or any of my children — were taken away, then found in such a brutal fashion.  Why do people do these things?  Why do they have such little regard for life?  Do they have some kind of sick fascination with watching someone die, or watching a family publicly suffer?  If they have such inclinations, they should take their actions out on themselves, not on a harmless child or even a young adult who isn’t able to defend themselves.  These people are COWARDS.  They have no self-esteem and the only way they make themselves feel better is by hurting others.

My heart goes out to Somer and Morgan’s families.  I pray Somer’s family can find comfort however they can, and that Morgan is found alive.  I pray that every other family with a missing child who finds a happy ending.  And I pray that no other family ever has a child that goes missing.  I know, it may be wishful thinking, but I can still pray, right?  Nothing bad ever came from praying.