What do you do when the full weight of evil hits you – when you are stunned by its presence, by its manifestations?

My wife has the good fortune to have a job in the medical field as it provides us with good health insurance. One unfortunate downside to this is that she often schedules appointments for children who have suffered some injury as a result of abuse, physical and sexual.

It’s one thing to say that we believe in the goodness of God, that we believe people are good and can be good with the help of an indwelling Christ. It’s another thing to have to see the evil so clearly present, so clearly malicious, and have to watch the damage that it causes in the lives of good – or at least unsuspecting – victims. When the victims are children, though, and when your main preoccupation is raising your own children in this cruel world, it can be too much.

It is far too easy for us parents to internalize the evil we see around us, to transfer it, imagine our children as the victims. Far too easy, I say, because our parental minds are geared toward protectionism. We have seen the innocence of our children, seen their most tender, vulnerable moments. And to think of someone preying on them, victimizing them, abusing them, using them for their own evil … I can’t really complete the sentence. It is horrible. Our parent minds can’t take it in, and we reject all clemency for the abusers. I’ve heard that the most despised people in jail for the inmate population are the child abusers.

And something in us cheers that, right? We all jump in, chime in, condemn them for abusing the innocents. And I should say rightfully so… except…

Except we are all the abusers. Search your heart, your mind, your memory and you will find a time when you harbored evil. Perhaps you didn’t act on it, but you plotted for a time, you schemed a bit. Maybe playfully (or at least you’ll tell yourself that), maybe with no real intent to act, but you did. I have. I’m not going to go into details because I’m embarrassed. All of us will be very hesitant to admit that our minds have gone there, have sought the evil. And I say “our minds” because that’s the way it felt to me. I was caught off guard by the fact that my mind had gone there, was dwelling in these evil thoughts, but I hadn’t really intended it. Now, my evil thoughts didn’t involve innocent babies, young children, but they involved people, God’s children. And, tell me, is an abuse against one of God’s children to be considered greater than an abuse against another of God’s children because of the age of the soul involved? We are all God’s children. Your abuse against any person is an abuse against God’s child.

I’m not saying we shouldn’t be horrified. I am. I can’t believe some of the things that are shown on the news. I have to rush to mute it because I, first of all, don’t want to hear it, and, second of all, don’t want my wife and kids to hear it. I swear, as soon as the clock turns 6 or 11 and the “news” breaks in, I lunge for the remote, almost covering my ears.

But, I’m no head-in-the-sand man either. I’m pretty well-informed of the evil of the world. But when it touches someone so close to me, or when it even gets to me, I don’t really know what to do. I lose hope, I condemn, I cry, I shake my head in anger, frustration, disappointment. I wonder aloud to God “How can you let this happen?” He doesn’t answer. After all, is He responsible for my bad choices? Why should He be for theirs?

I do know this, though: The evil I am so quick to condemn in others is (or at the very least, has been) present in my heart as well. Perhaps not the same evil, but that’s a lot like comparing different kinds of salt – once tasted, it’s easily recognizable for what it is. Evil is evil no matter where it comes from or where it is directed.

When children are abused my heart aches for their broken little hearts, minds, and bodies. I pray desperately that God would somehow redeem the evil and make it into Good. But I often forget (because I want to think I’m better than they are?) to pray for the abusers. As Christians, we are called to love our enemies. What clearer enemy do I have than someone who would seek to do my children harm?