Friday, December 14, 2012

The Sorrow of Today

     Today we watched the news as a terrible story unfolded. The pictures and video showed us the faces of terrified children. One little boy no older than 8 sat with his Mom, his hands were clasped tightly over his mouth, his eyes wide with shock. A mother was shown weeping and falling to the ground as she talked on the phone, the look of confusion and pain on her face broke my heart. The pictures brought it all home. Today I pray for everyone involved in this incident, I pray for comfort, and for us to remember this, and fight for a better future. I have never been one for prayer without action, you can't wait around for the world to be fixed.
     One day during the first week of school, I was picking up Kaitlyn and she said something that shocked me a little. She said 'Mommy, I'm scared of getting shot at school'. I thought ok, you can't always protect your kids from life, so I asked why she was scared. She said 'we have drills, the teacher says a word and turns off the lights, then we hide and we are very quiet, that way a person with a gun couldn't find us'. My first instinct was to take her home and never let her out of my sight again, but what would that help?
     When I was in High School Wedgwood Baptist here in our area was attacked by a gunman, he shot kids at a see-you-at-the-pole rally. Recently a movie theater in Aurora Colorado had a similar incident, kids were killed there too. Last week a man bought a gun and didn't realize a round was chambered, as he got into his car the gun went off, killing his young child. The man tried to preform CPR to no avail, what must he have felt as his child died in his arms? Those are just a few cases of what is going on in our country. We have double the number of school shootings than the rest of the world... COMBINED.

     Awful, hateful people are cashing in on this today, 2 of them happen to be professing Christians.
                 http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/fischer-god-didnt-stop-ct-school-shooting-because-hes-gentleman-who-doesnt-go-where-he-not-w

and this post from Victoria Jackson's Facebook page
                    My friend Jim Riley posted this today:

"Wasn't the Connecticut killer just doing what abortionists do every day? It's a wonder we don't have more 20 year old "dads" doing what women and doctors have been an accomplice to for years in America. When you forget the TEN COMMANDMENTS, people, THIS is what you get."

This behavior is atrocious, and I'm pretty sure the God I believe in wouldn't endorse this. I am saddened by these attitudes, I wonder if these people know they are turning many away from the Lord.
     I am personally a gun owner, we own multiple handguns and rifles. We practice caution first, safety of our kids is of dire importance. So I say this as a gun owner. I would give up my guns if it would cut down on this violence, however I don't think outlawing weapons would help. I agree with restricting weapon types, disagree if you want, but I don't think we need assault rifles. That alone won't help though, we need to educate EVERYONE who purchases a weapon in the US. They need to have safety classes and classes on gun care. This wouldn't stop the massacres, but it would stop some of the singular accidental shootings caused by ignorance of the weapon. Some people feel like the anti-gun agenda is being built on the bodies of innocent victims, but we have to ask why there are enough innocent victims in our country to build an agenda out of it. I don't seek to belittle today's deaths by backing a political goal, don't get that idea.
     Besides that there isn't much to say on it. No laws or legislation will give back the lives we have lost. It won't cure the scarred hearts of the kids who survived today. The best thing we can do is make a positive change in the world around us. The good people need to stand up and be heard, because in these incidents we see amazing people who show what is truly right with this world.


     -A 13 year old risks life and limb to try and rescue a 6 year old, the younger girl sadly didn't make it.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2177698/Colorado-cinema-shooting-Kaylan-13-tried-save-life-youngest-victim-Veronica-Moser-Sullivan.html
     -A security guard goes back into a Portland mall with an active shooter on scene to save the mallgoers
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/portland-mall-shooting-hero_n_2286050.html
     -many heroes emerged during the Columbine shooting. A boy jumped on top of people to protect them. A 15 year old held an exit door open so that people could escape, he was killed in the process. Here is a list.
http://www.angelfire.com/tx2/coroner/colhero.html

Do not lose heart, do not lose faith, if you don't believe in a higher power don't lose faith in humans. In the darkest of times we see who is great, because there is usually 1 or 2 shooters, however there are multiple heroes in every case.


(some of the links are bad, copy and paste)