SHIELDED MINDS AND LOCKED UP HEARTS

Blindered eyes.
Shielded minds.
Locked-up hearts.
Blythe belief that if it’s ignored it will go away.

Who am I talking about?

First I’m talking about adults in third world countries being destroyed by AIDS.
Next I’m talking about many of “the church” in North America.

We’ve watched the unbelievable phenomenon of parents emotionally detaching from their babies and toddlers. Some children are handed off after birth without even being named—handed off to wicked adults who will raise them as sex slaves. Parents are afraid of the pain that love of their children will bring as their children's little lives are crushed by AIDS in their own little bodies or in their loved ones.

It is disturbing to see that so many little ones are far past ever expecting their family—if they still have any left—to help. They wrest life a morsel at a time out of garbage cans and dumps, an occasional bit of food from a kind person, or whatever they can steal. I know of cases where sawdust and tree bark and sand were swallowed to ease the hunger pangs.

For these precious little ones (Jesus died for each of them) their whole life-plan and thoughts of the future are to just find the next bite to eat.

Skinny bodies and bloated little tummies are an unbearable rebuke to me for all the times I turned my heart away from them to pursue a personal comfort or possession. I remind myself, though, it is not wrong to provide safety and comfort for one’s family.

So then where is the line? Wherever I have drawn it has always been short of what I really could have done—and whatever I can do alone is not enough.

Can I ask you to close your eyes for a moment and look past the distractions of affluence and see a generation of little ones with eternal souls needing the barest necessities of life?

If your mind is shielded and your heart is locked, will you open up and make room for some hurting children?