I read two stories today of recent horrifying acts carried out by unbelievers against Christians in China and India.  The pain and devastation, the humiliation and the urge to recompense harm are far greater than any distant wire story can convey.  In one, a Chinese pastor in prison was beaten so severely by another prisoner that he could not move his mouth for 3 days; when he finally complained about the beating to officials, he was penalized behavior points and his assailant was praised.  In the other, two families were told by Hindus in India to renounce Christ; when they refused, villagers were given a green light by local authorities to rape the women in the families.  Within 3 days, villagers force-fed one husband wine when he refused to renounce his faith and then raped his wife; another wife of another believer was dragged from her home by villagers at night and raped repeatedly.  All of these things have happened within the last month.

These are the stories we do not hear.  We swell with righteous indignation at the allegations of malicious harm that are aimed at our own armed servicemen, and if proved true, we are right to be angry.  Hundreds of millions of dollars are spent to draw our attention to stories about such acts, but never when they occur against Christians and never when they occur against Christians in foreign lands. 

I was reading my Bible this morning, Romans 8, verses 11-14 (right in there somewhere, about the mind of the one who is controlled by the Holy Spirit has his mind on good things, right things) and as I was reading, the Lord spoke to my heart about myself, and Isaiah 1 popped into my head.  The Lord told through Isaiah that His people were guilty of blood and of going through the motions of His laws without being seriously devoted to His ways, and that they should wash themselves and become clean, to learn to do what is right and avoid doing what is wrong, and to defend the cause of the fatherless and plead the case of the widow.

Who is fatherless?  Who is a widow?  They're all around us.  And, right now, there's a Chinese pastor in a prison named Pastor Gong, and two families in India who are coping with brutal rapes .... all because they have accepted God's invitation to be their father.  And, maybe, probably, to me undoubtedly, they feel like God is not being very fatherly right now, and maybe these Christian women who were raped feel distant from their husbands because they've been violated so.  I don't know.  But, I do know this:  because their God is mine, too, their causes and cases are mine.  I pray for God to relieve them with peace and comfort, somehow, in all that darkness.  I want to do something to help.    I wish I knew what to do.  For now, I pray and I tell their stories here.  Will you do the same?