Proxy Parents by Clara Edna Rosecrans

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jan 9, 1912

Proxy Parents

By Clara Edna Rosecrans

CAN any one imagine anything more beautiful than the relationship that exists between parent and child? Poets have sung its praises, artists have used this theme to convey to the world their tenderest thoughts and their noblest ideals.

To this holy tie we owe the nativity of a Saviour, with all the blessings of redemption, and the ultimate salvation of our race.

The joys of childhood, the cradle songs with which our mothers laid our weary heads to rest at night, the little pleasures that were so much to us, that looked so large because we were so small,—all came to us because God gave us parents.

Our Father knew that in loving our parents we would learn to love Him, and that we could best learn from a mother’s lips of a Saviour’s love, and of His sacrifice for the children of men.

But I hear some one say, “There are fathers and mothers who never speak to their children about these things.” True, and it is sad that this is so. From the parents’ lips should come the first lessons; and by the time the child is old enough to go to school, he should have learned enough of the great truths of life to hold him firm amid the rude shocks of temptation.

But in case father and mother are silent concerning those things that effect the child’s eternal happiness, God has provided other means of instilling them into its mind, in what I am going to call, for lack of a better name, proxy parents.

We all know those who have never had the joy of children all their own; who have never felt white baby arms about their necks, nor sweet baby lips raised poutingly to theirs for a father’s kiss.

To these lonely ones has been given the joy of proxy parenthood.

In almost every neighborhood are neglected children who, from inability or indifference on the part of their lawful guardians, are left almost wholly to the care of friends and neighbors, their little minds uncultivated, their little hearts hungry for that love and tenderness which is their right, but which, tho they yearn for and miss, they never receive, because the heart from which it should flow has never felt the softening, subduing touch of God’s love.

From some one these children must receive their due; and how nobly these proxy parents respond to the imposed trust, only the All-Father will ever know. They work and pray and trust on, year after year,

wrestling with God for these beloved children in a spiritual soul travail that is as keen and sharp, well-nigh, as birth pangs.

With what earnestness they watch their progress, with what intensity of desire they seek to point them to the Saviour!

As they watch their hard battles with temptation, their frequent falls, and their trials for something better, they yearn to save them from the results of their own folly; and yet they know that only those who have conquered for themselves can gain a home in the kingdom of God.

Patiently, lovingly, they toil on; and when at last they see their young feet turning into the paths of peace, when they see them coming to the Saviour, and accepting Him as their all-sufficient portion, what joy fills their hearts! Then can they say, as did the noble Gentile apostle, “Mine own son in the Gospel.” I love to read that old story of Paul and Timothy, and there is something very touching in the fact that the last tender farewell of the good old warrior was sent from a Roman prison to this same beloved son.

How beautiful is the thought, that in the life beyond, these same proxy children will in very truth be ours, since the new birth will be the one to be taken into account there.

The care and tenderness with which these self-forgetful ones watch the spiritual growth, the slow, steady development from babes in Christ into strong, sturdy burden-bearers for Him, will there have, in its fulness, the reward that is meet.

But now these children go forth from them, and they see their faces, perhaps, no more in this life; but they know that they are workers for Jesus, and their hearts are glad, trusting them wholly to the care of this loving Friend who never fails.

There is a dark side to this picture, of which I do not like to think, where the beloved child of many prayers apostatizes from the truth, and goes back to the beggarly elements of the world. You doubtless remember that Paul had such a trial as this in the case of Demas (colaborer with Luke, “the beloved physician”), who forsook him in his time of greatest need and trial.

Ah, that is sorrow too deep for words; but we can pray, and hope, and wait, and “Jesus answers prayer.” The good Spirit will surely call them back, and there are other children who must be sought and won, other stones that must be polished and made bright, fitting jewels to shine in the diadem of our King.

So the hungry heart goes forth and clasps its bleeding cords about other lives, and finds its greatest reward in service.

Some day in that other life, we shall know what these noble hearts have done for the world; and like their divine Master, they shall see of the travail of their souls, and be satisfied.

Mountain Grove, Missouri.