Before you judge...

We had a terrible tragedy occur at the Pittsburgh Zoo yesterday. A two year old boy fell into the African painted dogs exhibit and was mauled to death. I have been to that zoo many times in my life and I can tell you it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The exhibit is fenced but there is a raised area where you can walk out "into" the exhibit and view probably 240 degrees around you. A mom made a very poor choice by lifting her son up and placing him on the railing where he lost his balance and fell. The dogs attacked the boy and he was killed. Its not the dogs fault, its what they do. The blame lies with the poor choice the mom made and the way the exhibit was planned. Let's be honest--how many of us have made a bad choice that could have turned out much worse for our children and if it weren't for the grace of God, or luck, depending on your views, could have caused a situation that ended in tragedy. The goal of the zoo is to show animals in as close to their natural habitat as possible but being able to place a child on top of the railing is bad design and poor planning. I, myself, have seen many parents do or start to do the exact same thing at that exhibit.

My heart is breaking for the family but I am sickened by the posts on Facebook in which people are saying all of the blame lies with the mom. Its simply not true and instead of judging her for her tragic mistake, we should all be praying for her and her family. I don't know if I would survive something like this personally.

I am asking for prayers for this mom and her family instead of judgement. It isn't our job to judge, please leave that up to God.