If you have not read the previous post, entitled “Life,” click here and read it first.
Currently, our family is smack in the middle of a trend that is sweeping violently through the house: cleaning out! Mom got a new book for Christmas that has motivated us all to evaluate how much stuff our home can really hold before it busts at the seams, and how much of this stuff we really need.
Well, yesterday I was organizing a low shelf in my room that, for all too long, has been forgotten and sadly neglected. To my surprise, several of the articles at one end belonged to me! I found several old notebooks… one with my coloring pictures from way back (well… maybe not that long ago :)), one with my Hunter’s Safety Course notes, and one with papers from a Bible study we girls had done. This last one held something within its binder that I had completely forgotten about: a letter, written in early 2005, that I had never sent. Now that I’ve seen it again, I remember sitting on the floor in my room one night, busily writing this to a good friend. The letter read:
March 28, 2005
Dear ______,
Hi! How are you doing? I’m doing great! Did you have a good Easter? We had a great and beautiful day, which helped me to constantly remember why we really have Easter.
I have a prayer request that is very important: Terri Schiavo, a lady from Florida, is being starved to death. She has major brain damage, and some people say she is just human waste. She doesn’t need any life support, all except for a feeding tube, because she can’t swallow. Her husband (who is very wicked) says she wouldn’t want to live like this, but there is no written document that says Terri said that. Her parents want to take care of her, and another lady offered her husband a million dollars if he would just hand her over to her parents, but he refused it. The Supreme Court ordered her tube taken out, and she has been starving for 10 days. Daddy said that she would probably die this week, but I know that if it is God’s will, He will spare her. All the people who are ordering her to die and the doctors and nurses who are wrongfully carrying out the order, are committing murder. A court law says that a judge can’t order murder, and that’s exactly what they are doing, even though they don’t view it as murder. Please have you and your family pray for her, as well as for her broken hearted parents.
Write back soon!
Love,
Kathryn
Like me, has the memory of the unlawful murder of Terri Schiavo been lost in your memory? When Daddy first came home, in 2005, with the news about her, and read us an article about the scenario from the Vision Forum website, it left a huge impact on me. I was 10 at the time. I wrote this letter to my friend, who was 11, but never sent it because, after having my parents read it, they told me that this was making national news and she probably already knew. Looking back, I’m amazed at God’s hand in even something so small. I would write the letter and stick it into a notebook that would get lost amongst many others on an unnoticed shelf, and then find it right after writing an essay on life, and shortly before the 6th anniversary of Terri’s tragic death.
So, have you forgotten the immense value that our Creator places on human life?
How should this reminder affect your actions?
It’s time for those who profess the name of Christ, the Giver and Sustainer of all life, to take a stand for it once again.
If I remember right January is Sanctity of Life month! So you’re articles are very timely 🙂