Forgetting A Child

It was captured on video.
A woman was smashing a driver’s side window of a car with a tire iron.
The incident was not breaking and entering.
It was to rescue a two-year-old child who was left behind in a sweltering car.

The scene took place in a shopping center parking lot in Merriam, Kansas.
It was after 4:00 pm on a Saturday.
The temperature outside was 91 degrees with a heat index of 101 degrees.
All the windows of the car were rolled up and all the doors were locked.

The child was screaming and covered in sweat.
She was wearing boots on that hot day.
Her ponytail was dripping wet.
People were running to the car screaming for help; someone called 911.

The manager of a Famous Footwear store sprung into action.
She grabbed a tire iron and tried to smash the driver’s side window.
The whole incident took three minutes but to the woman, it seemed like hours.
At first, the window would not shatter.

Finally, the woman was able to get the child out.
The child was checked out by medical personnel.
She is fine.
But in a matter of minutes, the outcome could have been very different.

The two caregivers said that they had only left the child alone for four minutes.
An investigation is under way.
No charges have been filed as of yet.
Ten children have died from being left in sweltering cars according to grim statistics.

The morning news show that reported this incident gave some suggestions to the viewers.
Suggestions about how to trigger your memory so you will not forget your child in the car.
Put your cell phone in the back seat, to remind you.
Put something next to the car seat that you always grabbed before having a child.

Another suggestion was to put a stuffed animal in the front seat next to you.
You look at the stuffed animal and you will remember that your child is in the back.
I have driven with a diaper bag on the roof of my mini van.
Somehow, it actually stayed up there for the entire ride.

But to forget a child seems impossible to me.
Apparently, it is more common than we realize.
Are we too distracted?
Are we in too much of a hurry?

Senator James Lankford (R- OK) recently spoke on the Senate floor.
I do not know Senator Lankford, but I know his heart.
I share his heart.
I share his outrage.

The Senator spoke about a group of animal rights activists.
The group stood around a research facility that was using animals for testing.
They held signs and chanted, It’s not science, it’s violence.
And, Animal life is their right, we have just begun to fight.

They protested to protect the lives of the animals that were being used for research.
Senator Lankford was not suggesting that cruelty to animals is acceptable.
On the contrary, he was merely extending the same outrage to a baby in the womb.
The baby who is referred to by many as, just some tissue.

No matter what term the culture uses, the truth stands.
It is a child.
It has always been a child.
Changing the term does not change the reality.

The Senator reminded everyone that each of them was once a 20-week-old baby.
A 20-week-old baby in utero.
The only difference between any of us and that child in the womb is time.
How very right he is.

What makes us go into a rage when a two-year-old child is locked in a sweltering car?
What makes us yawn when we know that an entire generation has been murdered?
These are not mice, these are not lab rats, these are children, the Senator boldly stated.
It was a human all the way through, there is never a time when that wasn’t a child.

Debates happen concerning Orca whales and horse slaughter, the Senator said.
And all during those debates, children are aborted.
We talk about humane treatment of animals.
We completely miss children being ripped apart in the womb.

The two are not unrelated.
Inhumane treatment of anything that God has made is unacceptable.
However the murder of innocent life, made in the image of God, is reprehensible.
The Senator asks an important question.

The question needs to be asked. Why this Congress would spend time today debating horse slaughter and debating Orca whales, yet we have become so numb to children that the other debate doesn’t seem to come up? Maybe we need to start again as a nation, asking a basic question: If that’s a child and in our Declaration we said every person that we believe is endowed by our Creator to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, maybe we need to ask as a nation again, Do we really believe that?

Do we really believe that?
Do we really believe God?
Do we really believe all God said in His Word about the beginning of life?
Do we really believe that though God is loving and merciful, He is also just?

The Jefferson Memorial in Washington, DC has an inscription.
God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God? Indeed I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that his justice cannot sleep forever.

God’s justice cannot sleep forever.
Yet we think that we are autonomous and do not have to answer to anyone.
How wrong we are.
We will stand before a holy God and give an account for everything we have ever done.

How we need a Savior.
How we need an Advocate.
How we need a Redeemer.
How we need Jesus.

We act as if we are on our own.
We forget that everything we have and everything we are is a gift from God.
We forget that life is not ours to give or to take.
Life is His; it is sacred; it is a mystery.

We are trampling the right to life without remorse.
Nothing that God has made should be treated inhumanely.
However, one thing God made was very good.
The creation of man and woman was very good.

We are the only creatures with the breath of God in our nostrils.
We are the only creatures made in His image.
We are the only creatures that Jesus came to save.
We are only creatures.

The Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into His nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. (Genesis 2:7)

Creatures very loved by our Creator.
Creatures carrying around a concealed dignity.
Creatures so important to God the Father that He sent His Son.
Creatures that Jesus died a horrific death on the cross to save.

One horrific death.
Perfect blood that was shed for the forgiveness of sins.
No other death, no other blood will satisfy the Father.
We are that valuable to Him.

Location does not determine value.
From conception to natural death, we are priceless to God the Father.
All God made was good, but we are very good in God’s eyes.
That very good life, made in His image, is worth protecting.

Do we really care about children or not? Before we can pat ourselves on the back saying how much we care about children, let’s make sure we are dealing with compassion for children at every age not just at certain ages. Have we really become this numb? How do we turn it around? (Senator James Lankford)

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Click here to view the Senator’s speech on the Senate floor.