Real Monsters

It struck me the other day as we were in the car and had the radio on and listening to the news and the very sad story that has dominated the news headlines for the last couple of weeks (although seems to have now even more sadly taken a back seat) of Maddie McCann. I realised that as parents we often get comments from our children about monsters, sometimes playing monsters, sometimes saying they can’t sleep because they are scared of the monsters, the response often given is there is no such thing as monsters but how wrong we are. The fact is there are monsters in this world, the really scary thing is, they look like the rest of us, like you and me and often we have no way of knowing until it is too late and we find ourselves in a position when someone or a group of people chose to hurt others (in whatever form that may take).
I remember as a child on holiday in the Isle of White going to the zoo there, there was a wall with a door on it with a sign that read something like “behind this door is the most dangerous creature ever to have walked this earth”, when you opened the door you were faced with a mirror.
It is a sad state and most of us can not understand how anyone can be so evil as to take a child. Monsters are very real and something we should be afraid of.
As the news seems to have pushed the story out a bit now (I actually couldn’t find an easy link to it on the BBC news site just now) we still remember Maddie and our prayers are still with Her and her family and we continue to pray for a miracle and that she might be found safe and well.