A Love for the Lost

So while I was in Romania, I found it very easy to love the children who had been abandoned, some beaten, some physically and mentally disabled, some not so cute! I loved them all. It was easy. However, visiting some of the parents of these precious children, I found it very difficult to feel the same love for them. And then I realized Jesus loves the orphans just as much as he loves the parents who abandoned or even abused them. Then I wondered how could He! It was very difficult for me to love them through my exreme anger for them. The Jesus that hung on the cross for those children was the same Jesus that hung on the cross for their parents who left them. In the same way, Jesus died for the victims of rape, abuse, hate crimes, theft, and countless other crimes as well as their perpetrators. Who is like this God?!? I started asking God to show me how HE sees these people. All I saw was evil. I couldn't understand. And I can't even explain it now... it's one of those mysteries that God works in your heart that while it's happening you don't realize until it's all over and you think "Wow, my heart has completely changed in this area!" It could only be God, but my heart has changed towards the parents. I have forgiven them. Even if their children never will, I have begun to see them as God sees them - blinded, chained, lost. They need as much help as their children do.