Sandy Hook and the Value of Life

Nearly everyone around the world has heard of the tragedy that occurred on December 14th, 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut, USA, when a young man entered Sandy Hook Elementary School and opened fire, killing 20 children and 6 adults.

I was shocked and devastated, as all of us were. My own feelings of grief came up as I heard the news and saw all the faces of the children whose precious lives were lost...I can understand in a different way what these parents are experiencing because I too have lost my child. Of course, I realize it's much different and Lily was not lost at the hands of someone else. However, losing a child is always extremely difficult and my heart breaks for these parents that will never again hold their little ones. The siblings of the children lost must be so confused about everything going on.

I can't help but notice how the children who were lost seem to be getting a lot more coverage on the news than the adults who died...as if they were somehow more important. The fact is, every single person who was lost is someone's precious child. They are all just as valuable as each other. But, yet when children die at the hands of another, for no reason, we seem to feel it that much deeper. Why is that? Is it because somewhere deep within, we all know that children are innocent and so very precious and deserving of our protection? Are we mourning for their lives because they barely even started and they were robbed of their days?

Their beds will never be slept on again. Their toys will never be played with. They will never graduate. They will never get married. Never have children of their own. Never grow up...

Why is it that everyone is completely devastated about these 20 who will never grow up, yet the more than 3,000 children in America alone (yesterday, today, and tomorrow, and the day after that) who will never grow up go unnoticed? 

I can't help but see the irony in this...why are the lives of the children lost at Sandy Hook more important than the more than 3,000 babies lost each and every day, in America alone? Why are we so deeply grieved at the loss of the 20, but aren't even moved by the loss of millions? Babies are literally the most vulnerable among us. They have no voice. They are the weakest and look how we treat them.

"They keep saying, 'A school is supposed to be a safe place!' Yeah well so is a womb." ~Pastor John MacArthur

If these same lives had been aborted in their mother's wombs just a few years before they were killed, people wouldn't have given it a second thought. They wouldn't even have been viewed as people...the same exact lives. It would have been viewed as the woman's choice. It would be funded by our tax dollars!

Please hear what I am trying to say...I am not at all minimizing the loss of the 20 little ones. What happened at Sandy Hook is just horrible and tragic.

But have we ever considered that maybe things like this are happening because we don't value life in it's most innocent form?  The measure of a civilization is how it treats its weakest members. 

Where are the tears for the unborn? Is it because we cannot hear the cries of anguish from the babes in the womb that we can so easily pretend abortion is okay?

As I listened to President Obama's speech after the Sandy Hook shooting, I was struck by how his words pertain to the unborn. This week I saw this video, with parts of his speech added in, that was made to be a promotional video for the upcoming March for Life in Washington D.C. Tell me you are not struck by his words as well.

Our President gave this speech saying we don't get anything right if we don't care for our children, "all of them," and keep them safe from harm. Oh Mr. President, are we caring for and keeping our children safe from harm when we (meaning you) vote against legislation which would require doctors to provide basic care to an infant born alive after a botched abortion? No, you voted in such a way that would allow these babies to be tossed in a bucket and left to suffer and die. Instead of being kept from harm, the unborn are literally treated as and disposed of as trash! Not with the honor and dignity that the children of Sandy Hook have been given by people around the world.

God doesn't see the massive number of children that are aborted each year, but each individual life. He sees the purposes He has for that life. Do we?

"In as much as you have done unto the least of these you have done it unto Me." ~Matthew 25:45

An unborn baby in the womb is definitely the least among us. These precious lives literally cannot speak for themselves. There is a silent holocaust happening right down the road from us...and what are we doing about it? We suffer from depraved indifference. It may move us at some level, but does our heart bleed for these precious ones? We go home and can laugh and act as if all is well in the world. Yet, innocent babies are being ruthlessly slaughtered in our very neighborhoods! Are we willing to spend ourselves for the weak? 

Jesus Christ is the only solution for us and for these unborn babies. Ask Him where He is leading you, who He is leading you to rescue. Pray for our nation's leaders. May we no longer sit by idly, but spend ourselves in order to rescue the least of these! Who will be a champion fighting for their cause? Will you? May we be moved beyond mere human compassion to action...for our King and His glory!

"He is longing for an advocate to stand up and say, 'I'm willing, God, to fight for what is Yours! I'm willing, God. Burden me!" ~Eric Ludy

"...it is not the will of your Father who is in Heaven that one of these little ones should perish." ~Matthew 18:14

"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it." ~John 1:5

"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." ~Romans 12:21