Compassion

Compassion. So many people have so much compassion for animals. Like every time that commercial for animal abuse comes on TV and there are all these sad puppies and kittens with that lady singing in the background “in the arms of the angel…” We’ve all seen it, and it makes us all want to go out and adopt 100 kittens…or maybe that’s just me. I change the channel every time it comes on. It ruins my whole day.  People have funerals for their animals, people have clothes and fancy refrigerated food for their animals. We love our animals. I can’t help but wonder how the world might be if everyone had that same compassion for people. I met a girl today named Rachel. Rachel is blind. Rachel’s eyes were eaten by maggots. Rachel is a year and a half old. Rachel’s mom dropped her into a latrine and left her for dead. Until someone came along to use the bathroom and noticed a baby in the bottom of the pit. Rachel survived. She has had four surgeries and still can’t see. Maybe if we put Rachel in a commercial and played a sad song, we would compel people to have compassion. Or maybe they would just change the channel. It’s easy to avoid the hard things in life, especially in America. But each and every day, Africa forces me to face the hard things in life. The things like babies being thrown into sewage. The things like how Rachel will feel when she asks how she lost her sight. How Rachel will feel when they tell her that her mother threw her away. Rachel is at a baby orphanage with about 20 other babies who were put in similar situations. Most were left at the doorstep. How is this ok? How do things like this happen? What ever made someone think that this is ok? How can we be ok knowing about these things? How can we change the channel? No, maybe you didn’t meet a baby who is 6 pounds and 6 months old today. Maybe you didn’t rock a baby to sleep that has no one in the entire world, who was left on a doorstep. But I did and I can’t change the channel. I’m not saying we should all go out and adopt African babies. I’m saying it happens. And we should care. I’m saying we should have more compassion for people. God asks us to love Him, and love people. No more changing the channel.

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.” Psalm 40:2