Colorado Church Shootings-HEAVY, NO COMEDY HERE

Someone is praying for You...

One of those weird unexpected things happened again. My sister-in-law lives in Colorado Springs, Colorado where they had two seperate incidents of shootings at churches. They locked down all the churches in the area for safety reasons. Now, several innocent people are dead, and for no good reason. They are not martyrs, they were not killed for standing up for thier faith. They are dead because some kid could not handle life.


It turns out the turd who did the shootings was kicked out of the dorm where he did his first shooting. He was raised in a deeply religous home, by good, God-fearing parents. Yet somehow, he flipped out. This has been a mystery to me: how people flip out when they have good parents and a seemingly good life. I guess the pressure to not fail got to him?


I know the arguments: video games and music videos desensitize them to violence; they have anger issues. But in my mind I think I have a partial answer. I wonder if these kids have ever come to grips with the reality that they are responsible for thier actions, and if they understand the consequences of thier actions?


One of the greatest gifts my parents ever gave me, was a dose of reality. My mom would say, "this is what will happend if you choose this action, and this will happen if you choose that action." Then she would tell me which was better and why, and then allow me to make the decision. Like when they told me that if I was caught drinking, I would lose my car for a month. Then when I came home stumbling drunk one night, and lost my car for a month. I remember it well. My junior year of high school: vice-president of the junior class, baseball team, one act play. Boy was I the busy popular kid! So you can imagine my consternation when I had to beg for rides to and from practice. How embarassing! (Yes, I was that shallow)


Then, another time my dad bought me a new camaro. I was in heaven. My dad simply told me, "you wreck it, and its gone." Well, I wrecked it, and it was gone before I got out of bed the next morning. They were just two of many tough love lessons, and I learned them well. It caused me to realize that every action had a result. And that I needed to weigh my actions, to avoid undesired results.


Its a tough thing for a parent to do: to provide the opportunity for a child to fail. And although they were serious issues for me personally, in the grand scheme of things they were really pretty minor. But they conveyed the greater lesson.


Tonight, I say a prayer for the families of the victims of the Colorado shootings. Please say one of your own. Those families will be forever affected because of the selfishness of one boy. The parents of those two sisters who were 16 and 18 will live different lives because thier sweet girls are gone forever from this earth. Comfort will be hard to find for that mom and dad.



It comforting for me to know, that Jesus was also "a man of sorrows." I pray they find thier comfort. Its good to know that they will see their girls in the sweet bye and bye. But its much harder to be comforted here on this earth, when those we have given our lives for are gone. I pray the peace of God comforts thier pain.