This past week the story of the adulterous woman that was brought before Jesus to be stoned has been heavy on my heart. Specifically when He spoke and said "The one among you who is free from sin, cast the first stone." What brought this to my mind has been the tragic events that have happened this past week. The shooting in Colorado and a off duty officer who was killed on his motorcycle in a hit and run accident. My heart of course goes out to the victims of these events and their families. But it also cries out for the people responsible for these horrible events. When I saw the picture of the young man from Colorado what I saw was the shell of a man. The difference when you look into his eyes from his college photo to the mug shot photo is so extreme. Something else, something evil has obviously taken over his mind, body and soul. And then when I saw people's reactions to him. The hate and anger that lashed out at this young man broke this mother's heart. I kept thinking, he's someone's baby. He is someone's son. He's someone's grandson. He's someone's nephew, brother, best friend. This family has lost their child as well. While yes, he will be sitting in jail, possibly on death row, they have still lost their child. The thought of someone saying the horrible things about my own child that are being said about him just made me so sad.
And it was the same for the woman involved in the accident with the off-duty officer. My question for others this week was this....have you never done something that ultimately hurt someone else in some capacity? Have you never had 1 to many drinks and thinking "Oh I'm good" got in your car and drove home?
Back when Joseph Duncan was arrested for kidnapping, torturing and murdering the Groene family, someone asked me. "If he was your son, could you still love him?" And my answer was absolutely. Loving my child does in NO way mean that I condone their behavior. It in no way means that I approve of what they have done. But they are still my child and what kind of a mother stops loving their child because of what they have done. Yes there are consequences for their actions and yes my heart would break to see that but I would still love them. Can you imagine if Jesus stopped loving us because of our behaviors? WOW what a thought that is. What if Jesus said "yep I died for you but you know when you did _________ well that for me was just unforgivable I stopped loving you then and I don't even want a relationship with you." Thankfully HE would never do that to us. He shows us grace and mercy every day. More grace and mercy then we deserve. Shouldn't we show each other the same? Yes these people made horrible choices that had deadly consequences for others. And yes they are going to have to be held accountable for those choices. But doesn't feeding into the hate and anger towards them only give evil more power? Shouldn't we be showing them love and forgiveness and while taking back the Kingdom and giving GOD the glory instead.
I challenge each of us to choose love over anger. To choose forgiveness over hate. To choose mercy over judgement. And to always remember that there are others who are hurting along side the victims of a tragedy.
