Good & Evil!

This is a very distasteful thing to write about but I have to get it out and that means writing it down.

I'm not much of a sports fan but I usually watch the Super Bowl to see the commercials. Yesterday I actually got into the game. It was fun and exciting to see. I thought the commercials were delightful as well.

Why would I call the Super Bowl good? Well, it's because it seems to bring out the good in people. It's a day that almost all of America comes together as friends and family to share the excitement with comraderie along side some friendly competition. I didn't see any poor sportmanship. It left me feeling happy.

Then the local news came on with a terrible story of evil. A little over two years ago a mother of two young boys had "disappeared." I use the quotation marks because the police and most of the rest of us are sure the husband killed her. He was evasive in interviews and uncooperative with the police. His father was recently arrested for child pornography. He had his children taken away for fear of what he would do to them. The little boys lived with their grandparents.

It had come out recently that one of the boys was talking about the night his mother disappeared. He had said that mom was in the trunk, that his mom and dad had gone into the desert and that only dad had come back saying that mom was lost.

So, yesterday the boys were taken by a social worker to a supervised visit with their father. On arrival the father pushed the social worker out the door and locked it. Then a fire began. The father killed his two little boys and himself in the fire. What a horrific thing.

I can understand that the father was breaking under the weight of two years of scutiny. I just can't understand why he had to kill his children. They had a happy home with their grandparents. He would not have been leaving them to a sad life. Why? The only reason I can think of is that he was afraid the truth would come out from his children and that even in death he could not face the truth. How terribly sad.

As Christians we are taught not to judge but it is very hard in this situation. I hold in reserve the thought that perhaps he was mentally ill though I don't believe that. More likely is that his evil father destroyed this man's conscience somehow. Who knows what kind of childhood he had. Yet there is a part of me that wants this man to burn in hell. He not only killed his children, he did it in one of the most painful ways imaginable.

The only peace I have are from stories of children that survived terrible abuse and spoke of Jesus coming to be with them during these times. The children tell of being held in Christ's arms of being surrounded with his peace and love. Whatever happened I have no doubt they have been reunited with their mother now. They are beyond pain and fear. Their father is not so lucky.