As I paged through a journal I kept a few years ago, I saw the following entry. It was written as a postscript to the life of a pet, a little yellow cat. It caught my attention and touched me partly because I had just printed the words of this children’s prayer on a smooth wooden bird house that hangs in one of our backyard trees.
“Today, we had to have Rocky put down. So we say a sad goodbye to a longtime faithful little furry friend. As his heart was beating its last beat, I said “I am reminded that we are to guard with tenderness small things that have no words”.
I love the prayer poem from which this is taken.
Dear Father, hear and bless,
Thy beasts and singing birds.
And guard with tenderness,
Small things that have no words.
I, too, am guarded with tenderness in my small and speechless faith, and I am thankful.
Stones and Feathers 
Thank you, Sonja! I am praying guarding and tenderness tonight for my husband, who is hospitalized with chest pain. I often find that children’s prayer express my deepest need.
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Dear Mary Ann, This is lovely. What a sweet and delicate prayer.
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