When I was a little boy, I would never take the last cookie in the jar. Up until then, I was fine eating them, but once it was down to the last cookie (or cracker, or other food item) I didn’t want to finish it because I was afraid my Mom or Dad would want one later and be sad and disappointed. I think this tendency amused my parents.

From early on God gave me a soft spot for people. Now I am not saying that I can’t be stupid, and act in uncaring and inconsiderate ways. Much the opposite! But over all I have a soft spot for people. My wife will gently chuckle as I cry while watching “Undercover Boss.”

The term “pro-life” has become so political, that I struggle to use it now. As my wife became pregnant with each of our children, I couldn’t imagine ending the small life growing within her and I’ve always mourned the act of abortion in our world. I’ve also struggled with seeing others suffer, whether it be someone sick, old, poor, or otherwise in trouble. I remember a magazine article I saw when I was 17 about a rural area. It had a picture of an old man next to his farm stand. A crude hand painted sign on the stand said, “Please blow horn. I am old & cannot stay out in the cold.” I hated that picture & didn’t want to see it or think about it, yet I couldn’t stop looking at it and over thirty years later I can still see it with crystal clarity in my mind. What upset me was I was so worried that people would take his produce without paying since he couldn’t stay outside. I felt sick.

These days I feel sick and upset a lot. As a virus races around the planet and through communities, people struggle and some die. I have been told by fellow believers that I should not be overly worried about this, that it just happens and “oh well.” That only makes me feel sicker. If even one baby dying in the womb is too many, how is it that we who are called by the Name of the Lord of Life find it so easy to dismiss the death of so many, especially the elderly among us. How can we be cavalier about a death toll in our country alone that rises well over two-thousand a day?

I cannot. I just feel sick. I’ve done too many funerals, sat with too many grieving families, and been at the bedside too many times as a person took their last breath, to be able to step back and just accept death so easily.

I hate death. I hate seeing people lost. And I especially mourn the loss of life of those who may be lost.

Don’t ask me not to worry or be concerned about that. Whether it is someone dying of Covid, of neglect, of abortion, of poverty. The rich person, the celebrity, the immigrant, legal or otherwise. The baptist pastor and the Muslim. There is no room in my personal politics to become callous to the suffering and loss of those made in God’s image.

If that makes me wrong, then I’m wrong, but I hate death.