Hurting for Lost Innocence–The Connecticut Shooting

My heart is broken this afternoon.

It hurts for families I’ve never met.

It cries for a town far, far from where I live.

It aches for the loss of precious lives, ended much too soon.

I cannot stop thinking of the people of Newtown, Connecticut, who are facing terrible tragedy today.

I want to wrap my arms around the entire community and tell them it will all be ok.

But I can’t. And it won’t.

It will not be ok.

20 children were murdered.  Innocent, precious kindergarteners, not even finished with their first year of grade school.

6 adults. Dead. Probably dying protecting the children they were in charge of caring for day in and day out.

Things will never feel ok again for the families of those vicitms.

And you can bet, those families will not be the only ones changed forever.

Crimes like these have a way of changing us all.

How will we drop our children off at school on Monday without this tragedy crossing our minds again?

How will we send them on their way, into a building where we know something like this is possible?

Of course, schools have precautions.  Of course, administrators will do everything they can to make sure our children are safe.  But ultimately, it’ll be a leap of faith every day, saying goodbye in the morning and hoping our precious children will come home that afternoon.

And if we don’t take that leap?

Well, then the bad guys win.

We can’t keep our children in a bubble.

We can’t live in terror.

We can’t, because that is not living.

We have to find that faith.  We have to take that leap.