Sandy Hook

 My last blog post was from the morning of Tuesday December 11^th.  

That tragic day, time stopped. 

Today was the first day back to school for the students of Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut.  On December 11th Adam Lanza’s rampage took the lives of 28 people—including 20 children.

I stood motionless that Tuesday morning as I watched the devastating details unfold on live television.  It is every parents’ worst nightmare.  That the massacre took place in an elementary school- a haven of safe places- it was more than I could handle.  I sobbed uncontrollably. I called friends all over the country trying to connect and make sense of it all.

The next day I recorded in my journal,

“It’s the day after the most deadly shooting massacre at an elementary school in our nation’s history.  Twenty small children are dead.  The magnitude of that reality, of parents who will never hold their children again, of the depth of grief impossible to imagine, of the anger, hurt, frustration, and all the unanswered questions, it is unfathomable.  When I allow myself to think deeply about it, I can’t control the well of tears that burst forth with a tsunami-like wave of intensity so strong that I wish it could wash over the school house in Newtown and miraculously turn back the hands of time and make things new again…as if the event had never happened.”

As I read the news reports about the subsequent funerals I can only begin to imagine the sheer amount of suffering that the families and community of Newtown are called upon to bear.  It is beyond comprehension. 

I have a six year old.  It could have been our school.  It could have been his classroom, his peers, his teacher.  It could have been him. 

I pray for the families of those who lost their innocent children.  I pray that somewhere in their hearts, as difficult as it must be, that somehow they can find a way to forgive.  I pray they will open their hearts to the healing and forgiveness that only our Savior, Jesus Christ can offer.