Lament
I wrote this post on December 14, 2012 after the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary School and before we knew many details about the murderer or his family. It seemed this could apply to the many shootings, terror attacks, acts of violence that have occurred in the three years that have passed.
I pray for comfort and mercy. And I pray for Peace.
Some days I think being a mom is difficult. The laundry piles up. My printer paper is used to make pictures and snowflakes and airplanes. Emotions boil up over a lost shoe or milk spilled. Patience. Mercy. Gentleness. Peace. I pray for them daily. Some days they come. Other days I have to work for them.
Then, today happens.
Gunshots in a kindergarten classroom. Tiny children murdered. Families grieving. Broken. Marred. Mutilated.
And today I realize how my problems aren’t problems. They are part of life.
Because my children are okay. Giggling as they play a game together in the living room. Looking forward to family movie night. Our Christmas plans. A new year together.
And my guts wrench for the parents of those innocents. Those beautiful, precious children.
I keep grabbing hold of my children today. Hugging them so tight. Begging God to keep that tragedy from my home.
Knowing that mothers and fathers will have an emptiness in their arms today. Tomorrow. For the rest of their lives. And knowing that an easy answer doesn’t exist.
And knowing that today, for one mother, is a different day of sorrow. That mother who, I hope, loved her baby. Her baby that, today, is now labeled a monster. Her son who, today, the world wants to see burn in hell.
He was once a beautiful, precious child. And something went wrong.
And I want to hold my children all that much tighter. Because I don’t know how that kind of tragedy comes into a family. How that level of darkness can take over. But I pray that God will not allow that in my home.
I ask God why. And that’s okay. I ask Him why this happens. And I know that the answer is deep and wide and dense. And that the answer isn’t just because evil is in the world. Because that answer is too easy. And easy answers don’t belong with this difficult of a loss.
I have no answers.
I can only lament.
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