the unspeakable

it is every parent's nightmare.

all the things you worry about.

drunk drivers. illness. depression. bullying. war.

until the last decade, it has not been school shootings.

even then, not in your child's school.

and then it happens. any death is horrible, but we have seen the deaths of six year olds and made no effort to stop it.

we will be judged.

and it won't be just the nra, who has put profits first.

it will be those who have seen the second amendment as more important than protecting our children. it will be those who have justified their arguments in the clear face of studies that prove otherwise, in the clear face of grieving parents.

and so will we who have stood by and done nothing, who have convinced ourselves that we cannot do anything.

we are wrong. we are guilty.

perhaps we have put our personal right to own a gun before a collective desire to protect others.  perhaps we have been so caught up in our own lives that we think we don't have the time or ability to affect these tragedies.

some may even justify a lack of concern for gay people or concert goers in las vegas. sad to say, there are people who say this in the name of christianity.

but how can you justify the murder of children, of first graders?

you must tell yourself that it can't be stopped. you must tell yourself that there is nothing to be done.

this is not true.

i wrote recently of my witnessing a horrific wreck. i still find myself reliving it and tensing up at street crossings.

now imagine the effect on those children.

as christians, we are called to do something. we are called to give up our individual rights if it protects the right to life of others. if we can save just one school from this loss of life, it should count more than our right to a gun.

 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.

as christians, i believe it is our job to do all that we can to work toward that good.

it doesn't matter if those children were christian. it matters that we are.

we can drop our support for any entity that has possibly encouraged this. we can write our representatives in support of restricting the use of silencers and fast repeating guns whose primary, and i would say only, purpose is to commit murder.

we can ask our leaders to work towards limiting the availability of these weapons, even knowing that some will find a way to obtain them.

getting these weapons should not be easy.

these weapons not only make mass damage easier, the damage of the wounds are vastly worse.

we can ask those who agree with us but have done nothing to begin to work actively against this carnage.

we can do what we can do.

as christians, it is what we are called to do.