“Like arrows in the hand of a warrior”, says Psalm 127:4 “So are the children of one’s youth.”  The analogy of comparing a child to an arrow takes a little thinking. Being instruments of direction, designed for a specific purpose they also have the image of hitting the mark or defeating opposition.  For an arrow to be true to it’s purpose depends greatly upon the warrior’s hand in which it is placed. First it is carefully made by it’s creator and then placed in the hand of the warrior who takes aim, decides in what direction it shall fly and what goal it shall try to accomplish.

          Children are a gift from the Creator and we have been given the responsibility to supply the needed direction for each child in order that they might hit the intended mark and impact the world with the best they have to offer. Parenting requires more than a casual dedication. For the warrior, training and commitment are essentials for life itself. The life supplied to all of us by the One who created it is  extremely fragile and dependent upon the multiplication of Christian souls. From the moment of birth we begin to impart values that influence the way a child thinks and grows. In 1889 Alois and Klara gave birth to this baby boy. Two previous children had died at birth and another younger brother died at the age of six. Only a sister outlived this sibling. The father, Alois died when the boy was only thirteen and his mother Klara passed away when he was just nineteen. Sometimes the window of opportunity for shaping a child’s future is severely limited by time. Who can measure the impact of life’s scars?  

          As the child grew, he was a poor student with little ambition. He had an interest in art but was denied entrance  to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts. He refused regular employment and lived as a homeless person dependant upon the charity of soup kitchens. It would seem that he had been given little in the way of values or even the understanding of a higher calling and as the years passed by the empty void inside grew just waiting and watching for someone or something to fill it. At this stage we might still wonder if a well placed word from an evangelical soul might have made the difference. There must have been opportunities but perhaps his heart had already hardened beyond acceptance.

          He later joined the military  and served during the first world war with distinction and was decorated for bravery. After serving for a brief period in a prisoner of war camp the young man turned to politics in 1919. Eventually he became a member of the Nazi party and was charged with treason for which he served a brief prison sentence. The 1929 economic collapse in the United States contributed to a global recession. The Nazi party gained in popularity as a result of the hard times and the rest is history as we know it. Somebody’s baby grew up and the empty void inside got filled. Filled with power, hatred and evil ambition. Somebody’s baby became one of the world’s most notorious monsters. Alois, an Austrian customs worker and his wife Klara didn’t live to see how their arrow impacted the world.

 Scripture quoted from the NASB version.