The Girl in the Window
I get mailings from Food for the Poor, because sometimes I give money to them.
(http://www.foodforthepoor.org)
There is always a little twinge in my heart when I hold the envelope in my hand. I'm tempted to throw it away unopened.
But I don't.
I open it, make myself look at the pictures, look into the dark sad eyes of the children, read the stories. Sometimes they make me cry. Sometimes they make me depressed. Once I kept one picture of two little children standing in a graveyard watching their mother bury two other siblings who had died of hunger. I kept this picture for a few days and when my eyes fell on it I remembered their story.
I remembered when I wanted to forget.
This story is one that a large part of me begs to forget. http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece
It's one of those stories that made me cry, made me angry, and will haunt me for a long time. To even think back on it now is hard. Especially because I am a mother.
But I still want to share it.
It is a story of great suffering and great beauty.
It is a story that both descends to the depths of human weakness, evil, and selfishness and rises to the heights of human compassion, self-sacrifice and love.
It is a story that makes one want to rail against a God that would allow such a thing to happen.
And at the same time, it is a story that makes one want to turn to Him as the only possible answer to the horror that we find in it and the only possible reason for the love that finally flourishes in it.
It brings us up against the face, literally, of innocent suffering, of Christ Crucified, rejected and unloved, the kind of suffering that will never make sense, that will always seem evil and wrong. And yet, as we read, we can try to see beyond the mystery, into the meaning, to find the plan, to find the glory that lies so very hidden.
And we can grapple with the reality of why bad things happen to good people . . . why horrifying things happen to the most innocent of the human race.
We can experience the compassion, the "suffering with" that is such a God-like quality we have been given.
We can feel awe, looking into the eyes of one who has been held so near and so close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
We can find our faith tested, our confidence shaken, but in the end hopefully we find it again made deeper, and stronger, despite the suffering that we have seen, because of the suffering we have seen.
Yes, this story will haunt you.
But this story is beautiful.
Even in this story, God is with us.
(http://www.foodforthepoor.org)
There is always a little twinge in my heart when I hold the envelope in my hand. I'm tempted to throw it away unopened.
But I don't.
I open it, make myself look at the pictures, look into the dark sad eyes of the children, read the stories. Sometimes they make me cry. Sometimes they make me depressed. Once I kept one picture of two little children standing in a graveyard watching their mother bury two other siblings who had died of hunger. I kept this picture for a few days and when my eyes fell on it I remembered their story.
I remembered when I wanted to forget.
This story is one that a large part of me begs to forget. http://www.tampabay.com/features/humaninterest/article750838.ece
It's one of those stories that made me cry, made me angry, and will haunt me for a long time. To even think back on it now is hard. Especially because I am a mother.
But I still want to share it.
It is a story of great suffering and great beauty.
It is a story that both descends to the depths of human weakness, evil, and selfishness and rises to the heights of human compassion, self-sacrifice and love.
It is a story that makes one want to rail against a God that would allow such a thing to happen.
And at the same time, it is a story that makes one want to turn to Him as the only possible answer to the horror that we find in it and the only possible reason for the love that finally flourishes in it.
It brings us up against the face, literally, of innocent suffering, of Christ Crucified, rejected and unloved, the kind of suffering that will never make sense, that will always seem evil and wrong. And yet, as we read, we can try to see beyond the mystery, into the meaning, to find the plan, to find the glory that lies so very hidden.
And we can grapple with the reality of why bad things happen to good people . . . why horrifying things happen to the most innocent of the human race.
We can experience the compassion, the "suffering with" that is such a God-like quality we have been given.
We can feel awe, looking into the eyes of one who has been held so near and so close to the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
We can find our faith tested, our confidence shaken, but in the end hopefully we find it again made deeper, and stronger, despite the suffering that we have seen, because of the suffering we have seen.
Yes, this story will haunt you.
But this story is beautiful.
Even in this story, God is with us.
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