God's exteme love

a fellow blogger friend of mine at brutallyhonest.com had this on his site today. while rick and i don't always see things the same way i often think we look at things with the same eye. here's his link:

it's worth it to read both his blog and the link back to the one he is commenting on about a courageous woman in pakistan who was gang raped as part of a punishment during a village dispute.

the orignial blog suggests that she suffered because of poverty; rick's suggests it was because of an extreme religion. i would suggest that it is a bit of both. anytime religion is taken to a fundamental extreme it becomes dangerous and those most vunerable in society become the first victims. the most vunerable are usually the poor, women and children.

rick knows that i have been against the war in iraq. in fact, most people who know me know that. and i still believe that it was the wrong choice and that we were mislead. and yet, i pray and pray and pray that God will bless the outcome.

back in 1999 (or was it as early as late 1998?)the ordeal of women in afghanistan became public. clearly their plight had something to do with religion gone wrong, taken to the extreme. i remember praying that God would do something so that america would become involved to change what was happening to oppressed women there. now i am certainly not suggesting that 9/11 occured because of my prayers. what i do see however, is the hand of God working in the insanity of what occured that day in september and in the lives of women, children, and the poor in afghanistan.

certainly God (or perhaps Allah) found a way to break into the story of Mukhtaran Bibi, the woman who was raped, just as God is breaking into the story of the war in iraq, just as God has broken into stories throughout history even our own.

and when God breaks into the story the story changes. it is no longer about religious extreme or extreme poverty, but God's extreme love for even the most vulnerable in society.

may you all see God entering your story with his peace.
cats