As a mother I grieve for those parents. It's a pain that I hope to never feel, the death of a child. I've had miscarriages, but this is a different sort of loss. To lose someone who you had entrusted someone else to keep safe, and it has further made our decision about our childrens education to be at home. I know that it is not that simple for most, but our choice has been validated again today.
I know that Accidents happen, and we can't protect our children from everything, but we are all asking the question, "what kind of a person takes the lives of so many young children?" It is a vaild and complex question. There will be lots of people delving into his "mind" before the shooting, but really he is and was the only person who can understand where his heart and mind were at the time.
I know that compassion for the gunman is never our first reaction, but I am going to remind those of us who know grace to find a little for this man who obviously had some tremendous hurt. Hurt that shut out the instinct to protect these babies and compelled him to see them as one of his targets. Obviously he did not know true grace, for where there is grace mercy comes naturally.
I have also heard that this man took his own parents lives today too, first his father and then his mother. Pray for their parents if they are still living, I suspect if they are that the guilt, no matter that they didn't do any of this, is probably crippling. And, they will be hounded for any information by everyone under the sun. Their privacy and right to mourn their losses will be stripped from them because the people want answers.
To the parents of the little ones who went to heaven today, I won't say "I'm sorry for your loss" as it seems that is what people say without even thinking about it. Me, I want to think about what to say to you, and make it mean something more....I can't feel the pain that you feel, but I pray that you will find something in the near future that will start to cultivate peace about this situation into your life. Your babies left this world too soon, but they are in the arms of someone who will love them until you can see them again.
To the rest of us...Hug your babies when they get home from school today. And if they ask what happened, just remind them that only hearts full of grace can really forgive people, and that Satan wants us to hate this man, and that gives us every reason not to.
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