They Wouldn't Do This To A Dog

Everyone is talking about Terri Schiavo, the poor woman in a Florida nursing home. Some would like her to please die. Others want to keep her alive.

There are those who say, "she is brain dead and worthless and would be better off dead."

Others will argue, "She is human and therefore has a right to live."

Some claim she wouldn't want to live like this, so she should die.

And some would rebut that it is not for her to decide as she is incapable and that right thinking people who guard over her have a bound and duty to preserve her life.

I can't lay claim to being a good friend of Rich Mullins, the Christian songwriter. But I was certainly an acquaintance and met him several times during his Cincinnati years. Rich was one of the most beautiful and tender hearted people in the world. He was loved and admired by all who knew him. In my opinion, he walked with God and God blessed him with a tremendous insight and the ability to put down that insight into wonderful song.

He wrote a song called Madeline's Song.

"Madeline fusses and Madeline laughs
The angel who watches says, "Hey look at that"
There's your faith, mountains will shake
Cuz God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

Madeline stretches and Madeline kicks
The angels in heaven say, "Hey look at this"
There's your faith, mountains will shake
Cuz God gladly bends just to hear Madeline when she prays

And the only angels that I've ever seen
Look like tears on the face of the sky
Though it sure breaks your heart to see heaven all streaked up
With sorrows like theirs, still you know all the while
From where cobbles shine golden like emeralds shine green"

Madeline was the infant daughter of a couple that were great friends of Rich. Madeline was born with brain and birth defects. She was totally helpless throughout her short life. Rich would go and visit her parents and he hold this baby and whisper and sing to her. And Madeline would in turn make baby noises and laugh and stare into the air. Rich would tell her parents how impressed he was with Madeline because he knew that her coos and laughs and gurgles were her prayers. She may have been written off as a pitiable waste of existence by some, but Rich knew that she had the attention of The Father and that His Holy Angels were communing with her and she with them.

Do you doubt that? Here is what our Lord said:

"See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven."

Who are we to say that Terri Schiavo does not commune with God? Her brain may be damaged, her body broken, but how do you measure a person's spirit?

Jesus also said:

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full."

I say that if Terri Schiavo was a poor starving dog. If she were a bone skinny dehydrated mutt, many of those who are in favor of starving Terri Shiavo to death would rally around this mangy beast. They would notify the press and have photo ops of themselves feeding the pooch. They would then start an organization called Feed The Hungry Dogs. Yet these same would deny this poor woman a cup of water.

Those that oppose allowing her to live are theives that come to steal (life), kill and destroy. Our Heavenly Father has sent His Son to us that we may have life and have it to the full.

Read Luke 16:19-31