Life Is Fragile, Handle With Care

This month has brought a strange and saddening series of reminders of the fragility of life.  First, several friends on Facebook started passing around a prayer request for a 38-year-old homeschooling mother and popular blogger who had had a sudden, debilitating stroke.  At this point it’s not certain whether she’ll ever recover.  Her husband had taken over her blog to post updates on her condition.  He has enrolled their daughters back at a local Christian school, grateful that they were able to be homeschooled the past year and a half, since it gave the girls more time with their mother before this unexpected tragedy.  It was eerie to read her own blog posts from only days before, so blithe and cheerful, with no anticipation of the hard road ahead. 

 

The second reminder came in much the same way, with friends passing around a prayer request for another young homeschooling mother and blogger who had just lost her 22-month old son in a tragic household accident.  This was the first time I had heard of her, but as a mother, I could certainly relate to the challenges of trying to protect my own little climber.  I can't imagine the heartache of losing a child, especially so unexpectedly.  As I read her story, and her follow ups about their grieving children, and how they had to face a Christmas and New Year’s only weeks after losing him, I couldn’t help but grieve with her and hold my little ones a little closer. 

 

Then came the senseless shooting in Arizona, where a congresswoman was shot and people in the crowd – including a 9-year-old girl – were killed indiscriminately by a schizophrenic madman.   The entire nation was shocked and grieving, and I thought people would come together and comfort one another like they did after 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.   Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.  Instead, within hours, malicious opportunists started exploiting a horrific tragedy to smear innocent people who had absolutely nothing to do with it.  I spent a week moderating comments on our local Oregon Tea Party Facebook page, which was getting nasty posts from people blaming us for the actions of a mentally deranged anarchist shooter who built death shrines in his backyard, burned American flags, hated watching the news, and listed the “Communist Manifesto” and “Mein Kampf” as his favorite books. 

 

I was so disgusted and grieved that people were so bent on pointing fingers at everyone EXCEPT the person who actually committed the crime, and were missing the real issue: how did a deranged individual, who needed serious help, manage to slip through the cracks and avoid treatment, even when everyone around him knew something was wrong?  How many lives could have been saved if he had been forced to accept treatment or be committed, instead of leaving that life-and-death decision in the hands of a person who is not rationally capable of it? 

 

There is so much heartache and tragedy in this fallen world.  Some of it is completely out of our control.  Some of it is accidental.  And some of it is completely preventable, if we’re willing to face the facts instead of flinging blame where it doesn’t belong.   Jesus told us, “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33)  For now, I pray for all these suffering families and their loved ones, and I appreciate the time I have with my little ones as I hold them a little tighter.