A couple of days ago, a lone gunman bent on destruction entered the elementary school that his mother, a kindergarten, worked in. The young man was heavily armed and focused. Within a matter of minutes he had unleashed a storm of dozens of live rounds, killing 26 people including his own mother, before presumably turning the gun on himself.
This horrendous and terrifying episode comes not as an isolated incident, though uniquely horrible because of the ages of the victims, but is becoming a more regular event in recent American history, having been more than ten mass-shootings in the past three years. And as the American public, once again cries out in grief pain at this harsh tragedy, let us look to the God of healing and of comfort for our strength and our relief.
It is a striking terror for a gunman not much an adult himself comes armed into a school full of children for the expressed intent of destruction. More than anything this event, as ghastly and sickening as it is, should prompt not to anger or to outrage, but to soldier on in devout in our convictions to love and for peace.
In the end, it is a bitter though necessary pill to choke down that, though the Almighty Lord is sovereign and in control, He does allow these horrible acts to occur. Mysteries, to be sure, but these appalling acts should not compel us to turn away from the Lord but to draw ever closer to Him in faith and in hope. It is God who heals and who bestows His grace and mercy upon those who earnestly seek after Him in faith and reverence. In response to the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, let us spend a simple moment in prayer for the families and the friends of the victims, remembering that God is, ultimately, in control.
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