my response
I really haven't wanted to address this. I've been avoiding the pain. Then I saw their pictures and read what their parents said about them. I read about the heroism of the teachers, the principal and the school counselor. I had to say something, if only to settle my own thoughts.
I've read and listened to many different responses to Friday's tragedy --
- be kind to the down and out and be the change
- churches and christians need to get down and dirty
- government must crack down in areas of gun control and mental illness
- armed citizens must fight back and not depend on the police
- don't forget that newtown is a beautiful place and shouldn't only be defined by tragedy
- hold your children tighter, don't let the mundane get you down
- remember all the mothers who have lost babies
- holding the torch high when we're so tired of the pain
- and Ann, with her words of Jesus rescue, the only only way to escape a world of sin and death
Of course, my children don't know. I've tried to shelter them eternally from death and cruelty and violence and guns and killing. I can't dream of how I would explain this to them.
And so I keep on this morning, picking up the clutter from our busy weekend, watching him do somersaults and looking at his train track and loading the dishwasher, eyes all wet. I've been giving him extra hugs and thinking about my five-year-old at school and aching for the teachers in schools around the nation. Like Sarah Bessey says, we weep "underneath the tragic optimism of our routine". Everything we do is optimism, is planning for a future. A future meal, a future education, a future adventure. A future.
And so he sits on my lap, cause it's been that kind of morning, and I spoon applesauce through his little red lips. And wrestle. With the weight of it all. It feels so heavy.
We all just want to cry for a moment and then FIX THIS BROKEN PLANET. We desperately want to latch onto a cause, a reason, a solution, some way we can fight back. We want to find a way to cleanse the world of evil and of sin.
But we can't do that. There is only one God, one Jesus made flesh, one sacrifice, one rescuer.
My heavy heart and I have to lean into Him, the All-Knowing, All-Powerful, Big Picture God who cares. I know He cries too. I know He wants to banish sin forever.
And so...while we cry...
Let us be pressed into God.
Let us show His love to the saddest and downtrodden.
Let us ache for heaven.
Let us trust HIM, the hardest thing to do when faced with sin-seperates-us-from-God tragedies like this.
Let us pray.
Let us not waste another day seeking things that will turn to dust.
And remember...
We are alive today, here on this planet that is suffering greatly and needs a Savior.
We are alive. We are here for a reason. A reason only God living through us will accomplish.
We are alive. Today. Maybe not tomorrow.
My mind still hurts. My eyes are dry, tired from the tears. I know Jesus is our only hope. All the world is sinking sand.
On Christ the solid rock I stand.
All other ground is sinking sand.
