Reason for Living

I read an article this morning that really made me sad.


On a brisk day last fall in Prineville, Ore., Raymond and Deanna Donaca faced the unthinkable: They were losing their home to foreclosure and had days to move out.
For more than two decades, the couple had lived in their three-level house, where the elms outside blazed with yellow shades of fall and their four golden retrievers slept in the yard. The town had always been home, with a lazy river and rolling hills dotted by gnarled juniper trees.
Yet just before lunch on Oct. 23, the Donacas closed all their home's doors except the one to the garage and left their 1981 Cadillac Eldorado running. Toxic fumes filled the home. When sheriff's deputies arrived at about 1 p.m., they found the body of Raymond, 71, on the second floor along with three dead dogs. The body of Deanna, 69, was in an upstairs bedroom, close to another dead retriever.
"It is believed that the Donacas committed suicide after attempts to save their home following a foreclosure notice left them believing they had few options," the Crook County Sheriff's Office said in a report.



"Left them believing they had few options." Those words continue to burn in my heart. Such a tragedy. So many lives being turned upside-down. And my heart just aches.

This housing crisis is taking its toll on many families. The article went on to relate several other heart-wrenching stories about people who had lost their homes. But in the midst of the darkness shines tremendous opportunity . . . opportunity for us who have been so deeply touched by God's love to offer hope to those who desperately need it. What an opportunity to introduce them to the God who loves them and will carry them through all things. They are searching for something, anything to hold on to. And we know. We know what will not only sustain them, but will set them free to be more and experience more than they ever dreamed possible. We hold the information, the power, to transform the moment. No longer will it be a time of few options. No longer will it be lost hope. No longer will it be the time when life as they knew it was ending.

Because on the horizon will be the life they never knew existed. And that life is only just beginning . . .