Alone they were and, like the protagonist of James Joyce's Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, free.  Quitting their corporate jobs and leaving everything to explore and experience the world, Lauren Geoghegan and Jay Austin traveled as they wished, stepping into cultures and times far from anything they had ever known.

     And along the way, they experienced the goodness of humanity.  Everywhere Lauren and Jay went, they were overwhelmed with outpourings of compassion and hospitality.  People, they wrote, are good.

     One day, however, they encountered a group of men who had sworn allegiance to ISIS. The fairy tale quickly came to a tragic end.  Lauren and Jay are gone forever.

     Nonetheless, Lauren and Jay were not mistaken.  People are good.  Every one of us, every last one of us, is made in the image of a good God.  We are all unique and special and loved by God.  But sin has fractured God's image in us; sin has cracked the mirror.  And horribly bad things happen.

     I don't despair, however.  As the Dutch missionary Corrie ten Boom, arrested and sent to Auschwitz for sheltering Jews during the Holocaust, once said, "There is no pit that God's love is not deeper still."

     Nothing can conquer transcendent love.