Yesterday there was a fire in Minneapolis that took the lives of 3 children and 3 adults.  It is the front page news on Star Tribune newspaper and was the lead story on every local news program. There are funds being set up for the families and a community of people are there to help the survivors of the deadliest fire in Minneapolis in 24 years. And rightfully so. Six human lives lost. And we feel the most sympathy for the children whose lives were cut so incredibly short. How horrifically tragic. My heart and prayers go out to their loved ones.

Now consider this; Today, 5 children will die from physical child abuse in the United States. That statistic should alarm us. Have you heard about one of those children who died today, yesterday, last week? Every once in a while we hear about one story of a murdered child on the news, but because those five children will be scattered all over the United States, they do not garner the attention, community support or wide spread sympathy that the Minneapolis fire victims are receiving.

We all should ask ourselves, “Why is that?” Does the geographic location of these innocent children make their lives any less valuable to us as a society?  Why are they less deserving of our attention, community support / awareness and sympathy?

How can we expose physical child abuse for the massive problem it is? What if every day, across the front page of every paper in the United States, we published the story of just one of those 5 children? Would that motivate us to find solutions that reduce those numbers? Or would we just become numb to their pain, their stories?