YUCK!

I picked up a book from the library last week and settled in to read it last night before bed.  I have always enjoyed reading before going to bed, but now that we have a sweet little bundle sleeping in our room with us, I have resorted to using a booklight.  Sometimes, if she is especially wiggly in her bed and I don't want to risk her waking up, I hide under the covers with the booklight and then I can't breathe, so it doesn't last long.  That happened last night and it was just as well, because 18 pages into the book that I was reading by a Christian author and published by a Christian publisher, I saw this:  "...Jen can wear that puke-green color and manage to make it look girly and adorable.  I wear the puke-green color and look like some sick poster child who's about to be adopted by Angelina Jolie."  I literally felt sick after reading that.  How does one even make the leap from comparing something so trivial as the way a person looks in a particular color to a child who has been orphaned?  And, like it or not, Angelina Jolie has provided a home to three children who did not have one.  That is a lot more than most of us are doing!!  Somehow there is something inherent in this comment that just sticks in my craw.  I think it is the fact that the "sick poster child" just seems somehow less - less important, less worthy, etc.  I'm guessing the author's intent was not to disparage orphaned children.  However, the point she was making could have been conveyed in a hundred other ways that would not have been insulting.  I have emailed the author and am following the command in Proverbs 31:8  to - Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves, for the rights of all who are destitute.


Matthew 25:34-40   “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in,  I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ 40 “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’