I just heard that Terri Schindler-Shaivo died this morning. Though of course, we didn’t know her personally, she profoundly touched our hearts and our lives. She taught us much about life, death, and the injustices of our nation – just how far it has fallen from its original intent.
Though we didn’t know her personally, God did. He created her in His image, with a divine purpose for her life, whether man valued it or not. It mattered not whether her husband or parents or courts felt they had the right to choose whether she was to live or die. Nor whether she herself would have not wanted to live. There is no such thing Biblically as the ‘right to die”. Though it is obvious that her parents would care for her, and her husband would not. True love is that which would lay down its own life for the life of another. It is obvious that her husband had long ago broken his vows to love and cherish and care for her, forsaking all others. But the world says, “He can love two women.” By killing one and committing adultary with the other. The sanctity of that marriage was thrown away many years ago.
What is not obvious to the world, and sadly not obvious to all that proclaim to be the church of God, is that all life has intrinsic value, not based on its mental or physical capabilities, but just because it is human life, created in the image of God. That what makes us “human” is not our “self-awareness”, nor level of brain function, but the fact that we have a living eternal soul, made in the image of God. What is no longer evident in our country is that civil government is ordained by God for two purposes (and it is God who ordained it), to protect life and property of its citizens, and to punish evil doers. It obviously is doing neither in this case. Terri’s suffering and death have amplified the message that our government no longer operates on the checks and balances provided for by the Constitution in our government of three branches, two of them made up of elected officials, so that the tyranny of an oppressive oligarchy, such as our judicial system has become, would never have this power it has taken to itself.
It is a travesty that not only was an innocent woman sentenced to the death penalty, because some deemed her life “not worth living”, but that she was sentenced to a cruel torturous prolonged murder, a method of killing that has people in our country sitting in jail for inflicting it upon animals. It is a travesty that the medical community, that swears to “do no harm” has murdered this innocent woman. It is a abomination that our civil government, that is to protect life and liberty, ordered the murder of an innocent one, while those that are Biblically required to receive the death penalty, will be protected from it by that same government.
God help us as a nation. May we repent for the sins of our nation, committed against the Almighty God and His Word, against the innocent, against those that are unable to speak for themselves. Their blood, that of those incapacitated and those yet unborn, cries out for justice, to a Higher Court than that of our nation, to the Just Court of God, who will judge all in His timing.
Our only prayer now can be that Terri’s death will not be in vain. That she will be as a seed, planted dead in the ground, that brings forth new life. That multiplies its effect for Life a hundred-fold. Our hope is that Terri is no longer suffering, but found her way to the Savior’s arms. Our grief mourns for both Terri and for our nation. Our condolences go out to her parents and siblings, and other family and friends who loved her, and knew her as we never could.
