"Why?"

Every night our family gathers together to pray before the children climb in their beds. My husband and I use this time to not only pray with our children but for discussion as well. 

Friday night having just heard the news ourselves, we decided we should tell our children about the tragedy. I told them how a man shot his mother and then went to the local school and shot 20 students and 6 teachers and then he killed himself.

"Why?" 

This question came from my 5 year old Jonathan. "Why?" 

I know I need to write about it. But I stare at my computer and the only thing I can type is "Why?" 

Every time I hear of yet another shooting. Why?

How do you answer your child? I told him that I didn't know what was going on in that man's mind. 

We know for a fact that God isn't happy with what that man did. And we also know that the man wasn't trusting God with his problems instead he killed his mother, 26 innocent lives, and then himself. Why?

I really don't know why. I could speculate. That seems to be what many other people all over the internet are doing. Speculating. There is a lot of dangerous ground in speculations. I am not going to tell you what I think all the possible reasons are.

The things I know for sure... 
God wants us to love our neighbor. (Matthew 19:19)
God wants us to love our enemies. Doing good to those that hate us.(Matthew 5:43)

I am going to continue doing my part to raise my children to trust God with all their hearts, souls, and minds.


And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. 
(Mark 12:30-31)

How has the news affected you? Did you find yourself speechless? What have you found to help get past the sinking feeling? Or are you past it yet?

For me it is finally finding the words to write.