The tears were what captured my attention. I was looking through (and praying over) a sea of powerful images from Haiti, all taken shortly after the earthquake, when one little girl's close-up seemed to capture the terror. She couldn't have been more than 18 months old, and the caption read that she had just awoken in the midst of hundreds of frighten people that were sleeping in the street the day after the quake, afraid of all buildings. As the little girl looked up toward an unseen care-giver, her expression was one that I pray my own daughter never knows - an expression of total despair. It looked as if she had been crying nonstop and had yet to be comforted. Exhausted, her innocent hope had all but died.
Unable to look through any more of the Haiti pictures, my eyes shifted slightly to a picture of my wife and then-18-month-old daughter that resides next to my computer. "I would do anything to protect them," I thought while choking back my own tears. I realized that if needed, I would gladly lay down my own life to prevent my family from knowing that same despair and terror.
Later, I was reminded of the words of Paul in Romans 5: "Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us." What hit me most as I read those words was the vastness of His love and grace. I can imagine giving up my life for those I love - and perhaps even for an innocent stranger like that young girl in the picture. But God convicted me of something - something so powerful I had to go back through those Haiti pictures.
There - a few pictures before the close-up of the girl was a picture of men fighting in the streets. They were not fighting for food or water, but over commercial goods stolen and looted from a demolished building. While newly-orphaned children weep nearby, they are trying to make a profit. One man in particular caught my attention as he raised a makeshift weapon in anger - ready to kill to secure his advancement.
That man - full of hatred and selfishness, consumed with rage and blind to compassion - that man is loved by my Savior as much as anyone else.
As I sat wondering about the moments after that snapshot was taken, God gently reminded me that there have been times when I have been that man - perhaps not physically hurting someone, but angry and blind just the same. Yet even while I was a sinner, Jesus laid down His life for me. How wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ!
I heard a quote recently that has stayed with me: "If you don't have someone or something in your life worth dying for, then you probably aren't living." The love that Christ has modeled for us is total and unconditional. If I am to follow Him, than I need to strive to love others with that same agape love - not just toward my family or those whom I deem worthy, but toward everyone. Just imagine how different Haiti - how different America - would be if we lived out that kind of selfless and total love.
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