(Fourth Sunday in Advent) There is a book titled BARREN COUPLES AND BROKEN HEARTS. It is about married couples who desperately want to have children but, for one reason or another, are unable. It is one of life's ironies, isn't it? Some couples have unexpected and even unwanted pregnancies. Other couples who are totally unfit to be parents also have no difficulty breeding. Then there are those couples with so much love to give but who are denied the opportunity.

Of course, children are a challenge. I read a true story about a family who lived on the forty-second floor of a high-rise building on the lakefront in Chicago. Each morning the two-year-old son kissed his father good-bye as his father stepped into the elevator, which was located just outside the door to their apartment. Each night …