Overcome Evil with Good.

I just read the story of the heroic rescue of Jeff Bauman - the young man who lost both legs below the knees at the tragedy in Boston. On Monday, I had viewed the iconic picture of a man in a cowboy hat helping get an injured young man to an ambulance and today, I was glad to learn the story behind the picture.  Here's the full story from the New York Times . . .

In Grisly Image, a Father Sees a Son

In the article, the man in the cowboy hat is identified as Carlos Arredondo - the man who saved Jeff's life.  In the immediate aftermath of the bomb, Carlos raced to the devastation, put out a fire on Jeff's clothing then applied tourniquets to Jeff's badly damaged limbs.  Without that selfless act, Jeff would not have survived.

Amazingly, I also thought I had heard Carlo' name before in another photo and a quick online search turned up another photo from that day . . .

And that story has to do with Carlos losing his own son, Lance Cpl. Alexander S. Arredondo, a marine killed in Iraq in 2004. Since his son's death, Carlos has traveled around the country with a coffin in the back of his pickup truck, a coffin filled with mementos of his son that came with a "burden" to never let his son be forgotten. I would have missed that story, also from the New York Times written in 2007, had I missed clicking on the link of his name. Here's that story . . .

A Father With a Coffin, Telling of War’s Grim Toll

And now the stories are connected.  And I begin to tear up.  Carlos made sure that another father did not lose his son.

In Romans 12:21, Paul wrote that Christ followers should "not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good."  These were the words that were echoing in my mind all day yesterday as men and women ran to the bomb area rather than away from it.  There was far more good than evil that happened on April 15.  In that alone, the bomber or bombers failed.

Overcome evil with good.

On April 15, 2013 Carlos Arredondo lived this out and we were fortunate to have his story captured in those photographs.  And I pray that if Mr. Arredondo has not already found peace in the years after that first New York Times article,  in this heroic moment, he does find that his life rescued from the flames has purpose and meaning -- that the greatest memorial to his son is the living Jeff Bauman.

The man in the cowboy hat who lost a son, on Monday, saved a son.  There is redemption in this.