Think like a child to experience agape love

Evil is everywhere. It’s become pervasive. You need only look as far as the evening newscast to realize the never- ending degree of chaos our society is reaching.

Whether its killing, corporate scandals, riots, airstrikes, police brutality, refugee crisis, violent crimes, human trafficking, political power plays or terminal illnesses, they directly affect us all. It’s traumatic.

Let’s face it. We now know what constant traumatic events do to you. Ever heard of PTSD? Post-traumatic stress disorder is real and you don’t have to be a combat veteran to experience it.

Some people experience hyper vigilance — an increased state of awareness concerning ones surrounding — mostly because of the fear and anxiety that traumatic events having occurred in the past will occur again in the present. It’s real and its trauma-driven.

New studies show you don’t even have to be present to be impacted. Watching highly traumatic events can have the same impact on you as actually directly participating in them. It’s true whether we like it or not. It seems trauma has become a permanent part of our societal landscape.

So what are we supposed to do? How should we respond to the traumatic times we find ourselves living in?

As I contemplate an answer, this thought keeps flooding my mind, “In evil things, be like babies, but in your thinking, you should be like adults.”

So when it comes to all the evil we’re surrounded by, we should act like children but think like mature adults? How does that work? And how does it create appropriate responses to the increasingly trauma-inducing environments we continue to confront?

I love stories. I’m very visual, so when I think of concepts, I see picture and enjoy story boarding my thoughts for the sake of conceptualizing important ideas or wrinkles.

When I think of acting like a child when it comes to all the evil we’re surrounded by, I think of a story I heard as a young person. There was this boy around 5 years old and his sister had cancer. It was terminal without a bone marrow transplant. The little guy ends up being a match for his older sister. They explain the procedure and how it works. He bravely agrees and the procedure is scheduled.

He’s placed under anesthesia and the procedure goes well. Upon awakening, he begins crying, “Is my sister going to be OK?” The attending nurse reassures him, “Yes, because of your bone marrow, she’s going to survive.”

Tears streaming down his face, he asks, “How long till I die?”

When it comes to how to respond to a world full of evil and the trauma touching our lives as a human family, you couldn’t ask for a better response. You talk about seeking after love and in evil things being like babies. This boy’s story paints the perfect picture of how love still matters. True love makes the difference.

Even the most traumatic life issues can be overcome if we’re willing to respond this way. But so often, many don’t respond in a way that demonstrates how agape love makes a difference. Could it be because we allow ourselves to think like this little 5-year-old boy, rather than acting like him?

If we think like mature adults, we clearly understand a bone marrow transplant isn’t going to kill us. But the little boy thought saving his sister’s life, giving up his bone marrow, meant he had to die so she could live.

How many of us think like that, so we rarely act like this brave boy? We think going out of our way, to do something, for someone staring traumatic life issues in the face might kill us. Not only did the bone marrow transplant not kill him it saved his sister’s life. And that’s the difference.

Forging appropriate responses to traumatic life issues is certainly not child’s play. But if I ever needed a bone marrow transplant, there’s simply no one I’d rather have in my corner.

As it relates to responding to an evil world full of traumatic life experiences the most we can hope for is to be like him. Of course, there are those times we have to say no and make difficult decisions not to participate, but may it never be because we allow ourselves to think about difficulties in distorted or childish ways. Understanding how to behave like this little boy and how to think like a grown up is key to empathetically unlocking and setting others free from the terminal trauma traps so pervasive in this life.

When is the last time you acted like a child while thinking like an adult? It probably won’t kill you and more than likely you will experience a love allowing you to become part of the permanent healing process. And maybe being a bone marrow match as well.

That’s the agape difference.