I'm a protector; always have been. Maybe it's because of my size that I've always felt the need to protect people who maybe couldn't protect themselves. People I love, friends and family, it really isn't something I'm conscious of doing all the time. I have friends I just feel a need to protect, to lift them up, and to take care of them and they're grown adults who don't need my protection, so I kinda force it on them little by little. Because I have this protector's spirit, my biggest fear in life is not being there to protect those that I love. I am not afraid of dying, losing all my money, my house, the cars, guitars, or any earthly possession. I don't fear losing friendships or jobs. My single biggest fear in life is not being there if my loved ones every needed my protection.
I have a prayer, or a part of a prayer that I say almost every day and in this prayer for family and friends, I always ask God to send any blows destined for them to me. Any sickness, pain, disease, heartache, despair, or any other hardship, please God spare them and send it to me, I can carry that burden so they don't have to. I pray for that every day. I pray for it every time I read a post on Facebook about little boys and girls fighting horrible diseases, every time I hear about a parent losing a child, and every time I am reminded just how fortunate we've been to not have to endure those unthinkable tragedies.
I was up early this morning, spending some time meditating on my protector's spirit, my fear, my prayer, and I began to think about my children, Taylor and Bo, 8 and 4 years old respectively, I thought of Bill's kids, Zoe, Tripp, and Jasper. I thought about Julianna and Samantha. I thought about AP's two sweet kids, I thought of my nieces and nephews, I thought about Micheal and Amy's kids, Micheal and Melissa's kids, I thought about Patrick and Krista's kids, and I thought about all the pictures of these kids I've seen on Facebook, all the times I watched them run around the Church on Thursday nights, and all the proud comments and funny anecdotes their parents have shared in the relatively short time I've known them. And then I thought about the children and the parents involved in yesterday's tragedy and I began to weep. I don't know any of them. I have purposefully avoided watching or reading anything about this horrific shooting; I haven't seen the images, heard the stories, or seen the faces. I don't have to watch. I already know 20 kids and parents just like the ones who lives were lost or forever changed yesterday in this senseless act of violence against the most innocent of us. I wept for the mothers and fathers who didn't get the chance to take those blows; they all would have. I wept for the fathers who biggest fears were realized yesterday. These aren't people I know, but we all know them in some ways, they were just like us up until yesterday.
I was left with one prevailing thought today; WHY? Listen, I go to church a lot and I pay attention most of the time. I read a lot of posts yesterday from people who are considerably more well-versed in the Bible than I am, but I'm not sure they will ever convince me that a merciful God would ever allow something as horrific as what happened at that school yesterday. These were children, the most innocent of people who walk among us, the ones who need our protection the most. You can talk about a broken world with inherent evil, you can quote Chapter and Verse, but you will never ever convince me that any of that makes sense. I don't understand it and I never will. I have doubts about my faith and most of the time I feel really unworthy of being on that platform on Sunday morning because of those doubts and my own shortcomings. Today, I am at a loss for any sort of understanding or rationalization. Today, I am just left with WHY?
I called Bill sobbing yesterday. It could just as easily and randomly been one of our kids or your kids. I cannot take comfort in anything right now. I wish I could have taken a bullet for any of those kids that I don't know. I cannot watch any coverage of it and it's not that I want to pretend it didn't happen. I just cannot stop crying! Canot stop feeling angry that God allowed it to happen! I feel overwhelmmed with love for my children but also so angry that ultimatley I cannot protect them or any others! Great blog post! Thank you for thinking of my kids!
ReplyDeleteWe love you and are so thankful for reconnecting with you. Please excuse any spelling errors.
It's come to light that the killer had Asperger's (autism spectrum) and possibly a personality disorder, according to his older brother. People who knew him said he avoided everyone and always lacked emotion in his face.
ReplyDeleteHis parents had recently divorced and neighbors were quoted as saying something was definitely wrong with him. The only way I can make sense of this is to believe that those around him failed him, that there was no protector in his life. And when someone with these kinds of disabilities experiences pain without comfort, this is what can happen.
To me, this is the downside of free will. You hear stories about angels working in people's lives in times of crisis and tragedy--if there was ever a time for that it was this time. So why nothing?
I have also felt extreme pain and sadness over this event, the loss, the failure, the inconsolable pain of those who lost what was most precious to them. The only thing that makes sense right now is to love everyone we can, to look for opportunities to help and protect, to do the work of our creator. Because that work wasn't being done in this killer's life, and the result is this abject condition of failure--dead children--not on god's part, but on the part of the people in that young man's life.
The only comfort I can take in this is to believe that what awaits the children of the human heart's failure in the world beyond is something specially prepared and specially fitting just for them, a secret place in eternity where all they will know is love. Just for them.
One week before this event I attended a meeting concerning lockdown procedures at district schools. This very scenario was used to explore what the teachers and staff must do (I can't get the imagery used out of my head knowing it has happened). And as I sat and listened to the procedures for dealing with a gunman in a school, I imagined it in the setting of an elementary school, because that's the age my kids are. And the imagining stopped and stopped and stopped; I couldn't imagine it in the elementary school. I even had a dream about it earlier this week. In the dream I was exploring the ways I would thwart the unimaginable. But even in the dream it seemed ridiculous, because to me it was so ridiculously impossible. But still the whole idea was surrounded by dread.
I'm not sure what that means. All I know is that those children are dead, and every day children are dying because of the continued, unabated failures of the human heart (It's significant to note that the killer's name was Adam). What are the protectors going to do about these ongoing failures? Because I don't have enough tears to do justice to this tragedy. There must be something else I can do.
Thank you for sharing.
As a society we've devolved in our love and caring for others. As a nation, we decry this senseless tragedy and mourn these children of ours, then we excuse the killing of children in other countries from drone attacks on the politics of their elders. Children largely are innocent and I cannot make sense of any of these things. I'm really struggling with my beliefs after yesterday.
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