There is no tragedy, however terrible, however personal, however awful to contemplate, that cannot be exploited by cynical opportunists for their own ends. Not even kids stricken with cancer.
Both of these photos have been shared publicly on Facebook, in unrelated groups. I added a blurring effect to preserve a modicum of privacy, but the top photo is otherwise unaltered from the original, which was first posted in late 2014. The bottom photo was posted almost a year later to a devotional Facebook group, after the original wording had been erased and replaced with a message about prayer.
I’m having trouble wrapping my head around why someone would do that. What story do they tell themselves while they are erasing the words which the family originally meant to share and replacing them with a message promoting their faith?
I suppose the most charitable assumption is that they justify the appropriation and blatant reinterpretation of someone else’s tragedy in terms of what they see as a greater good.
