LOVE IS ABOUT KEEPING FAITH

River boatman - “Love is the river of life in the world.”

When the world lets you down, is there somebody who will keep faith?

In her book SMALL SACRIFICES, (Signet, 1988) Ann Rule tells a gruesome story of a mother who sacrificed her three children and how one family went the distance to set things right.

Diane Downs rushed to the emergency room covered in blood. She screamed that her children were in the car and had been shot. She said she'd stopped to help a hitch-hiker who pulled a gun and shot all three of her children in the head and torso. Her five-year-old daughter died. Her little son Danny was paralyzed and would certainly suffer psychological trauma. Her six-year-old daughter Christie suffered a stroke, some paralysis and, like Danny, psychological trauma.

Police immediately scoured the area for her assailant. But the investigation eventually turned from the search for an elusive killer to the motive for a mother to harm her own children. Diane apparently had been having an affair with a married man named Lew. He was not interested in being with her when the children were around, so, the prosecution later postulated, Diane decided to eliminate her children in order to keep Lew.

During the saga, one man took a genuine interest in her children. He was Fred Hugi, the prosecuting attorney. Hugi was married, but they had no children. He always said he never liked kids and had nothing to do with them. But all that changed when he visited Danny and Christie in the hospital. His eyes filled with tears at the sight of Christie. She could not move, but she made eye contact with the lawyer. That day he walked away filled with love and compassion for the helpless children.

Hugi visited her several times a week. She was eventually given to caring foster parents and the attorney continued his visits.

Over a year later the case finally went to trial. The most solid evidence against Diane came from her daughter Christie. She told a horrific tale about the frightening events of that night. She was afraid of her mother and needed reassurance that she would be safe if she testified. She told how her mother had shot all three children – Danny on the floor of the car, her sister in the back seat
and she in the front. She described in detail her fear, shock and disbelief.

Diane Downs was finally convicted and is serving time in prison. Her children continued to live with the same foster family for two more years.

This sad story of a mother's brutality doesn't end here, however. It takes a wondrous and beautiful spin. For both children were eventually adopted by a caring family committed to raising and loving them, regardless of their long-term special needs. It was a couple who didn't have any other children of their own and wanted to be faithful to Christie and Danny for the rest of their lives. They were adopted by Fred and Joanne Hugi – the prosecuting attorney who loved Christie the first time he saw her fighting for her life in a hospital bed. This family chose to go the distance, to keep faith with two small children when the world had been so unfaithful.

As Emmet Fox says so well:
"There is no difficulty that enough LOVE will not conquer,
no disease that enough LOVE will not heal,
no door that enough LOVE will not open,
no gulf that enough LOVE will not bridge,
no wall that enough LOVE will not throw down,
no sin that enough LOVE will not redeem..."

Sometimes love is just about keeping faith.

From Lifesupport.