Monday, May 09, 2005

Laura Hobbs (8) & Krystal Tobias--Best Friends In Life Found Stabbed To Death

There are not enough tears in all the world to wash away the sickening reality that two small, 2nd grade girls were found stabbed to death in a park near their homes in Zion, Illinois, today.

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Laura................Krystal
Laura Hobbs was 8-years old. Krystal Tobias was 9. Laura will never have a 9th birthday party, nor will her best friend, Krystal, ever have a birthday cake with 10 candles in it. I can imagine the presents they would have brought for each other and the playful energy that would have erupted into giggles and laughter and smiles.... everything that respresents life for a child... gone. Taken. Why? For what? Questions without answers.

It comes to my mind that 10,000 children die every day around the world. Most of these die from malnutrition and disease brought about by poverty, famine, unclean water, lack of sanitation or forced relocation from their homes. Yet even in the poorest countries few children die from simple acts of murder (the Sudanese region of Darfur being a major exception).

What thoughts run through a man's mind as he holds down a small girl on the ground and plunges a knife into her squirming body? What are the dark feelings and twists of reason that provide his motivation? Is there pleasure? Happiness? Can the goodness and love and all that is right and true be turned completely inside out and reversed like the negative of a black and white photograph?

Is there an "anti-morality" that exists within the human psyche, frantically and feverishly pushing and shoving, like a fully-formed chick in its egg, pecking and swelling so as to emerge like a geyser of poisonous "anti-life, spewing death like a darkening plague upon the smiling faces of children?"

Is there within us the seed of our own destruction which leads to the destruction of little girls as well? As we hold the bottle with the genie inside, can we resist the urge to "release the power" and discover what wishes might be granted to us? How do we keep the cork firmly in place? And how can the genie, once released, be returned to the confines of its ceramic prison?
Can it be true that......

"The intent of man's heart is evil from his youth."

"The wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually."

"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; Who can know it?"

Could it be that the Bible is correct? "The wicked man craves evil; his neighbor gets no mercy from him."

Was it Jesus who said? "For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly."

My friends, there are monsters in our midst. They lurk along the bike paths in our parks. They live in houses on our streets. They sleep in beds that look exactly like your bed.....and mine.

There is a small voice within us that beckons and calls to us in whispers, "Evil is good! Good is evil! Do what you feel! There is no right or wrong unless you choose to call it so. It's your choice. It's your decision. It's all up to you. Hurry, now. The apple will not hang on the tree forever! Why not? One bite? One little bite? What harm can it do? Who knows? It might even be a good thing!

Dear friends, join with me and pray these words to God, "Do not drag me away with the wicked, with those who do evil, who speak cordially with their neighbors but harbor malice in their hearts."

Pray that the monster that is in you might be slain by the Lord.

And pray even more fervently that the monster that has been let loose in Zion, Illinois, might be found quickly and put back into its bottle forever.