[The following is a guest post by Chris Noonan Funnell. It's from last year, but holds up today. Written from a Christian perspective.]

About two years ago a magazine arrived with a startling cover picture of a youth thrown back in his chair, alive or dead, I could not tell. He was still seated, interrupted at something which was no longer there on the second floor of a building which only minutes before had the roof and sides torn off by a rocket attack.

A young emergency worker with gloved hands was bending over him and turning toward the camera for help with such a look of helplessness that the picture pulled strongly upon my maternal heartstrings. The beefy young victim, still seated in his chair, where I am guessing, his desk and computer once were, was a dead ringer for my youngest son. I am still hoping the unidentified youth is alive and well though I have no results from my inquiries, but my son, asked me why I keep a picture of "a dead guy" on the wall. I am still wondering what became of that young man who was probably doing what my son would have been doing, using his computer, tuning out sirens and annoying distractions, when a missile sent from Lebanon, tore the roof off his dorm building in Haifa.

Blood trickled down his thick, hairy legs and from his nose. Wearing shorts, socks and t-shirt just like my son often wore, he was covered in fine white dust created by the explosion. He was overweight with a big belly like my son's. He probably had bad eating habits, like my son, spurned his veggies and exercise, loved meat, fast foods and caffeinated soda. The settled concrete dust made him look ghostlike. He was limp but still in one piece, a miracle, sitting in tact, among the rubble of the building around him. Could he be alive but in shock...? Would he ever be normal after such an assault?

I stared at that picture a long time until I was certain it was not my son, after all, my kid was safe at college in Texas. I shot him an email and was not at ease until he answered back later that day.

The magazine Israel My Glory by The Friends of Israel started arriving bimonthly a few years ago and I'm still not sure who sent me the subscription but I read and reread them, hungry to know more about the land and people of Israel. Someday I will go there as a late blooming friend of Israel. Christians are commanded to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. We are not supposed to divide that city or preside over the divvying up of disputed territories in order to buy peace. George Bush made a grave mistake with his misguided Road Map for Peace. Condi Rice wore out her shoes trying to achieve peace in the Middle East and Hillary Clinton will also as she pursues President Obama's misguided policies. America is perilously close to self inflicting great harm for pressuring Israel to give land up, according to scriptural warnings.

Rachel is weeping for her children, again...and has been daily since hostilities flared up in that region over her existence as a nation. Missiles have rained down on the people of Sderot for eight years and more often since Gaza was given up as a peace offering two summers ago, proving that land for peace is a sham. How many more have to die before America, friend and ally of Israel, speaks up for Israel? We waited too long during the Holocaust and six million died.

Last year eight youths were cut down at their religious school in Jerusalem by a cold blooded terrorist. The shooter was a Palestinian who lived among them yet took an automatic weapon and fired 500 rounds. The library floor was covered in blood, the white prayer shawls turned red. Devastated parents grieve and mourn over their fallen sons who were buried that evening as is Jewish custom. How does a mother deal with the sudden violent death of her pride and joy, the object of her hopes and dreams?

I felt a hint of that feeling for a moment looking at the photo of the shell-shocked victim in Haifa who so resembled my son. His hand, exactly like my son's hand, rested on a bent piece of steel. I prayed a grateful mother's prayer. "God, thank you for protecting my son and that he is safe at college in Texas where missiles don't rain down on him from the Mexican border."

Then, I heard an answer in my heart. "But that one in Haifa is My child , I want you to pray for him and all my children in Israel like you pray your own child." I got it. And I understand a little better that great love and yearning of the Father for His children. I think of my own dad who once told me when asked which of his four children he loved the best, he said, it is the one who needs him the most at the time.
Surely Israel needs to feel God's love at this time. We are to be God's hands and feet and voice on earth. We can comfort His people. We can mourn with Rachel and stand for the sovereignty of Israel while praying for the peace of Jerusalem.

Chris Noonan Funnell, is a free-lance writer living near Boston, the Founder and Director of Commonwealth Covenant Keepers, and yes, she is related to the other notable Noonan journalist, Erica.