Hold Tight

My heart broke last Friday for the families affected by the tragic shooting in Sandy Hook, CT. I sat through church yesterday holding my dear nephews and crying for the little ones who weren't there to sit through church with their moms and dads, aunts and uncles just two weeks before Christmas. My husband looked at me after church and asked what was wrong and did I want to leave. The tears were running down my cheeks at that point. I made it to the truck before I started sobbing. 

I am so blessed. I have six wonderful nephews and two nieces. I nanny part time for two other amazing, spectacular girls. Of these ten children five are between the ages of five and seven. The oldest is only nine. All these kids who died three days ago were either six or seven. They were excited for Christmas. Their parents were probably done or had at least started their Christmas shopping. Everything in the houses they lived in are going to remind the hurting families of the little light that was snuffed out so suddenly. 

How do we make sense of the tragedy? Do we blame God, or do we run to Him? Do we call for gun controls, or say that if some school staff could be armed, maybe some loss of life could be avoided? 

Here are my answers to these questions. 

1. Something like this doesn't make sense. I can't imagine losing one of the precious children I love, let alone a classroom full of them. It makes me proud of our country that there are still a few heroes left--women who were willing to risk their lives to try to stop the gunman. These women offered the ultimate sacrifice. They died protecting the children entrusted to them.

2. I do not believe that God is to blame for these atrocities. He is in control of the world but he still gives us free will. We can make choices--right or wrong. If he wouldn't allow it to happen just because the choice is wrong, it wouldn't be free will. If you take away the options it isn't really a choice any more. So I run to God. I don't understand. God help me, I don't understand. But I know that those kids aren't in pain anymore. They aren't afraid anymore.

3. Gun control or not. Well, I guess I say look at drugs and alcohol. Do people who aren't supposed to have those still get them? YES! Underage? No big deal. Have someone else buy them for you. Use a fake ID. Go somewhere where they don't card. Use the black market. Find a dealer. Do we think that instituting gun controls is going to help anything? What will for sure happen is that law-abiding citizens will not have access to the guns that the unscrupulous will. Drugs are illegal. Does that stop anyone in any high school in the nation from having ready access to them? NO. What we need to do is stop idolizing the shooters in these cases and stop making them household names. We need to teach our teachers and school officials disarming techniques and maybe even if we don't arm them with guns, give them a taser. Let them paralyze the people trying to kill others for a short while so they can disarm and subdue them.

 But please, don't take the guns from the law-abiding to punish the criminals. 

I pray that the families of the victims and the children (and adults) who were in that school that day receive comfort and peace. That they will know they are not alone. That all the country mourns with them the loss of those precious ones. That the victims will never be forgotten and that the person who committed these terrible things will. I pray that even when we can't make sense of a tragedy, we run to the arms of the One who can.