There is a deep sadness in my heart as I contemplate what happened in early November. A woman named Brittany Maynard chose to legally end her own life. The Death With Dignity act, currently legal in three states, allows terminally ill patients like Brittany to commit physician-assisted suicide.

I first came across Brittany’s story when I read an open letter to her from a fellow cancer-sufferer. In this letter, mother of four Kara Tippets earnestly articulates the inherent value of Brittany’s life, story and even her suffering. Since there is beauty and value even in the midst of imminent suffering, Kara pleaded with Brittany to refrain from taking death into her own hands. I found this letter so sensitive and beautiful because Kara made no appeal to God’s exclusive right to dictate a person’s date and time of death. Kara, more than most, probably knew how unhelpful that argument feels to someone in the midst of a debilitating, terminal illness — particularly someone without an intimate relationship with God.

Upon hearing Brittany’s story, Kara did not spring into action by writing a cold, objective opinion piece on the broader subject of euthanasia. She did not cite a Christian ethicist or callously throw Bible verses at this woman. Kara looked at another human being — one of the few that knew the same kind of suffering as she — and beheld the image of God in her.

The temptation for some Christians, myself included, is to stand firmly on the foundation of personal conviction while writing an opinionated blog post in our minds. I urge you not to do this. Before you reach your conviction about this story, or the issue at large, think about the divinely-created, fearfully and wonderfully made, image-bearing human beings on whom it comes to bear.

It seems unspeakably insensitive to so coldly evaluate the courageous decision of this woman to put the last moments of her life on display. In doing so, she opened herself up to our painful criticisms. She agreed to be vulnerable, weak and dying in front of a global audience. One cannot possibly know the courage it took for Brittany to end her life, surrounded by her loved ones, when undoubtedly the deepest desire of her heart was to stay with them. Brittany exhibited incredible bravery to do what she did, and to do so publicly.

From a Christian perspective that boasts certainty of life after death, it becomes easy to be staunch in our convictions. But we must not lose sight of the fear and uncertainty that accompanies so much of the rest of the world’s notions of death.

I have an opinion on the subject, but the world, particularly right now, is overrun with people trying to articulate their opinions to anyone who will listen. We need, instead, to sit in the quiet and the still where we can truly consider her story, her life and her loved ones, and resist the temptation to formulate opinions. We are irresponsible human beings if we launch our defense before we consider the issue.

Near the end of her beautiful letter, Kara articulated her desire for Brittany to know Jesus in a compelling way.

“For everyone living knowing death is eminent — that we all will one day face that it — the question that is most important. Who is this Jesus, and what does He have to do with my dying? Please do not take that pill before you ask yourself that question,” Kara wrote.

The heart of the issue is not euthanasia, the sanctity of human life, or bioethics, the heart of the issue is always Jesus. In a culture that rapidly slides away from the gospel, we are ruined if we do not remember this.

As Christ’s ambassadors we are called to bring his name to the ends of the earth. If in this endeavor we first trumpet our laundry list of moral absolutes to the world, the world will not listen long enough to hear about our Savior’s love for it.