Jasmine

Day 63

When I saw her face on the front page today, she caught my heart. The first thing I thought was, She could’ve been one of my kids – one of those dear little rascals I taught letters and sounds to last semester.

But she wasn’t one of “mine”. This 4-year-old in a pink tank top who smiled micheveously up at me from the newspaper was the one who was jumping rope outside her house on Monday night. She was the one was who was killed in a drive-by shooting by a “gutless thug” (as Mayor Barrett called him) who only shot his intended target in the leg.

I can’t help but wonder if that little girl was saved – had anyone shared the gospel with her? Was she even at the age of accountability so that she could understand and respond by simple childlike faith to the news of Christ’s death for her and ressurrection?

These questions, along with many others, will go unanswered. People will try to answer the whys and the whats. They will talk of too many tragedies, of gang problems or gun problems, of changes that need to be made in crime-ridden areas of the city. They will come up with solutions – more police patrols, more legislation, more cracking down. But they won’t come up with a solution for man’s heart of darkness.

And what has saddened me today is, they won’t come up with a solution for Jasmine.