The Word in Focus with Dr Larry Taylor

“A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”

(Matthew 2:18; Jeremiah 31:15)

Fifty-three years ago today, I was a 20-year-old college kid sitting alone in a cold sterile deserted hallway at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. The obstetrician, now in his suit and tie and on his way out, saw me and said, “You mean no one has come to talk to you?” He let me know all was well and escorted me to the nursery where a fully-gowned nurse held up a 9-pound bawling red baby boy. I wept with joy and praised God for the next three hours.

Thirty-eight years ago, on my 35^th birthday, the brilliant, vivacious, adventurist son I loved with all my being committed suicide.

Between those two events, Elliott filled the world with ceaseless exciting activity – double black diamond ski slopes, freestyle rock climbing, Latin lessons, science experiments, German folk dancing, electronics, science fiction, calligraphy, ice hockey, heavy metal music, varsity wrestling, skipping grades, messing around with his peers, wooing his girlfriend with roses in her locker, church youth group …

… then, on February 11, 1986, the world lost a brilliant mind and a tender soul. What would he be like had he not given in to adolescent impulse? Another Francis Collins or Neil deGrasse Tyson?

The loss of any child by any means is a loss to all.

·      13,000 children killed in Gaza.

·      Russia has killed at least 1,800 Ukrainian children.

·      Over 3 million children die of hunger every year.

·      From 2007 to 2021, the suicide rate for Americans aged 10-24 rose 62%.

·      Worldwide, eleven babies die every minute.

·      43.3 million children are living in forced displacement.

·      Under the Trump administration, the United States sent at least 21,300 asylum-seeking children and their families to dangerous Mexican border cities where they are unable to access basic services and often become victims of criminal cartels.

Avoidable deaths.

Every single child is created in God’s image, is deeply loved, and is filled with unfathomable potential. To lose a child is to lose a piece of the future.

Without exception, every child deserves love, food security, clean air and water, proper sanitation, and an environment void of killing.

Weep for the children.

Pray for peace.

Work for justice.

End poverty.

Stop the wars.

Ban the guns.

Feed the hungry.

House the homeless.

Jesus said, “Let the children come to me, and do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of heaven belongs.” (Matthew 19:14)