Our prayers are with the parents and relatives of the elementary school children mindlessly murdered in yesterday’s school shooting in Uvalde Texas. We also pray for the families of the two dead teachers, the wounded children still in critical care, and for every child now living with the vicious images and suffering from witnessing yesterday’s evil. In time we will forget this horror and move on, but they will have to carry this grief the rest of their lives.
However news agencies and politicians choose to interpret or overlay their agendas on this horrific event one thing is for sure - evil is rampant.
Whatever, or whoever, possessed and motivated an 18-year-old teen to engage in the mass shooting of children was pure evil.
This day’s follow-up news is as expected: a million unanswered questions, debates on gun rights and restrictions, the need for armed school officers, mental illness, signs and messages foretelling what the teen was about to do, regrets of inaction, and a permanent loss of innocence. I remember as a child walking three miles to school unmolested by evil with my book bag, lunch money, and favorite baseball glove in hand. Although my mother was a consummate worrier she at least had a reasonable expectation that at a certain afternoon hour I would come bounding through the door of home safe and sound. No parent should have to worry that sending their child off to school in the morning might be the last time they see them alive.
One brother in Christ said to me often, “Hug your kids. Tell them they are loved every day and don’t miss today’s opportunities.” Satan will not stop until this world is as broken and as traumatized as possible. Our hearts are broken - and only One has the power to truly change the world and support the broken-hearted.
“Be strong and take heart, all you who hope in the Lord.” (Psalm 31:24)