Good morning…
“Sue, how do we make sense of the senseless?” she emailed after yesterday’s post, How Can Students Shoot Students? “We thank you for trying.”
“Yesterday, I felt compelled to call my sister, who lives in Highlands Ranch, Colorado,” her email continued. “As we are were catching up on unimportant details of each others lives, one by one I could hear ambulances and police cars screaming in the background of our conversation. In the beginning, it seemed that there was an accident of some kind nearby, but as the volume of rescue and safety vehicles increased, both of us started to take notice. While on the phone, my sister happened to be driving near the STEM school, which her son had attended for a year. She realized, before I did, the magnitude of what was happening.”
“Screaming into the phone, she told me there must have been a shooting somewhere nearby,” my friend explained. “Obviously, she was panicked, because she still has a son in high school in the area. We hung up the phone when she recognized her son’s school calling her. Thankfully, my nephew was safe and on lock down. We were both shaking, knowing someone else might not be as lucky, which we would find out later to be true. Once she found out it was the STEM school, she began to worry for her neighbors’ children. As it turned out, one of those neighbor children was shot, but he is recovering.”
“It was so bizarre to feel a part of this tragedy without being there,” confessed my friend here in Atlanta. “Just hearing it played out over the phone, was incredibly frightening. I’m so sorry for these families that have to pick up the pieces today and deal with their new realities. It’s horrible for the family that lost their brave child, for the children that witnessed it, and for the families of the shooters. It is an all too familiar scenario. Thank you for helping us deal with these devastatingly sad and senseless stories of everyday life. We must try to choose pray peace over the chaos that tries to envelope us.”
“I am so sorry for this grieving pain in your sister’s close-knit community,” I responded. “Your words are so beautifully written and bring this tragedy intimately home. May I share your email anonymously with our online community? I think shifting these tragedies from ‘them’ out there to ‘us’ right here helps us to pray with more tender compassion. All across the globe we are so intimately interconnected, and God’s presence expands among us as we lean in close to pray for the brokenhearted.”
Do you remember how this memorable phone call began? One woman in Atlanta saying, “I felt compelled to call my sister…” As we pray peace over the chaos that tries to envelop us, God’s Spirit within can mysteriously compel us to reach out at the exact right moment. When someone is hurting or brokenhearted, the Eternal moves in close and revives him in his pain (Psalm 34:18, VOICE). If we prayerfully listen well to the inklings of God’s Spirit stirring in our soul, we ordinary people are empowered to become the love, the voice, the presence of God to those in pain, mysteriously reaching out at the exact right moment.
…Sue…
