Don’t do it. It is way too depressing, and it will tick you off at the same time.
I’m ticked off. I'm talking about getting on Google and typing in missing girl.

I did it because I wanted to see what the latest news was on a girl missing in Ohio. I’d heard about her story on one of the morning news programs and just wondered if she’d been found. Actually, I was praying that she had been found.
I had no idea I would get a long list of missing-girl reports from all over the country. As I scanned the list, names of more missing girls were popping up on the screen within the minutes that I was on Google — 10 minutes ago, 5 minutes ago. Each disturbing story was accompanied with a photo of a beautiful, fresh-looking, smiling-faced teen. Oh my goodness. What in the world happened to them?

 On the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC) website, about missing children it said, "If any other segment of our population were so impacted, we would declare an epidemic."

Fifteen-year-old Eddiemae Hackman went missing on her way to school on the Southside of Chicago on Friday. Two other Chicago girls have gone missing since then, Shanice Griffin, 14, and Savannah Scott, no age given for her.
 Police in Ontario, Canada were looking for 13-year-old Ansharina DeVera, last seen by her family on Aug. 25. An 11-year-old went missing in Jacksonville, Fla. Sunday night.
What the heck?

Surely they all are not runaways. And if that’s true than someone must have snatched them, but who? Why? Who does something like that? Grab your kids — boys and girls — and hold on to them — tightly; this world is full of crazies or so it seems. Have we always been surrounded by so many souless people or is it just that with the Internet and 24/7 news coverage we are hearing about it more often now?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not naïve. I know child abduction is not a new thing. I know folks have been stealing other people’s children for years and in too many cases the child is never found. Or found but not alive.
I can’t even imagine what that must be like; for the child, their friends and family members. It’s heart-wrenching for me to think what those parents must be going through.

Several years ago I interviewed the parents of a young man who went missing while on a trip to Chicago with a college academic club he belonged to.
That young man just vanished. Police searched the Chicago River and every where for years and never found him. I remember how broken his father seemed as we talked about how much he loved his son and how proud of him he was. But he also was determined to keep looking. I still get messages from that dad when events are going on to raise money for the ongoing search.
That’s what I mean. Most of these parents never stop looking for their child. It’s the cruelest thing in the world. What torture, the never knowing and the always hoping, and never getting an answer.

I can’t tell you that I’ve never had the momentary fear that I’d lost my child in the grocery store or a department store (my kids were usually found playing hide and seek between the clothing racks). But I can tell you that even having them missing for a few minutes was a sick feeling. I felt like I would just puke, my stomach in knots, my head about to explode. I can’t imagine that feeling sustained.

This is not one of those posts where comments are expected. But it is one that I hope will make you think, about those parents and their children. And pray their children are found. Maybe it will just make you hug your own children a little tighter tonight; Remind you not to be too hard on them when they make a mistake. Maybe it will make you stop and count your blessings. I know we can't be with our children all the time. But when we can we must watch them like a hawk, because there are vultures out there preying on our children.

 It's terrifying. I don't know what the answers are. I don't know if there are any. But maybe when any one of these people who has harmed an innocent child is caught and convicted they should be sentenced to first face a mom squad. Then, after that, the judge could put them behind bars - FOR EVER.

 By the way, the Ohio girl is still missing, or she was the last I chcked.