Another shoot, another city, another community that suffers and learns to pick up the pieces . . . only this time the community is ours, the community in which we raise our four young children, all seven years old or younger.
The crime scene was at a Walmart we frequented; it was our community, our neighbors, our backyard that was cruelly attacked; our first aid, our hospitals, our police officers, who are now on the front line; on a brief morning, twenty people lost their lives and 26 were injured, some seriously, still fighting for their lives.
- Lives that are completely ambushed and unexpected.
- Precious and innocent?From young children to the elderly.
- They were violently shaken.
- With loved ones suddenly disappearing.
- What was supposed to be another normal Saturday turned into a hate-fueled crime scene.
- A cloud oscura.
- Se looms over the city of El Paso.
I grew up in the safest city in America. Last weekend, this title, which we have been wearing so proudly for so long, was taken from us. Reading about shootings in America is tragically common, but when terror hits oneself. city, you breathe another breath of tragedy. Does this get real for you? more than news.
Although we live and suffer in a very sick country, in Christ we are citizens of a better country (Philippians 3:20) So what do we tell our young children who see these things, to the next generation who learns firsthand?the horrors of the consequences of sin, some of them for the first time?
When I was a kid, I never had to understand anything like what happened on Saturday. We practiced shooting exercises when we were kids, not active shooting exercises. When my children listen to the stories and see the images, as they try to pick up the pieces of the tragedy of this massacre and understand it, I want to remind them of a hope that is not found in government, laws, policies, ideas and plans. Security?. While it’s important, all of this will leave us empty and look for them again. Does our hope come from knowing who God is? (Psalm 46. 1) and what he did to save sinners like us.
Murder and hatred begin in the heart. James writes, “Where do the wars and conflicts between you come from?From where, if not the pleasures that militate in your flesh?Call and have nothing; kill and envy, and you can’t get anything; you live fighting and fighting wars?(James 4. 1?2). Uncontrolled and active rage begins first deep within us. Our problem with our culture and our world is in our hearts. Sin is the problem. Since the first murder, a brother has been jealous, hated and then acted in anger, shedding the blood of his own brother. Murder begins in broken hearts like ours. The Lord warned 8 Edin (and all of us after him), behold, sin is at the door; His desire will be against you, but is it up to you to dominate him?(Genesis 4. 7).
God is not absent in the face of tragedy. King David, writing from a Philistine prison, said: “You counted my steps when I was persecuted; Have you collected my tears in your skin?”(Psalm 56. 8). If you are in Christ, your God hears all your cries and catches you. Every tear. Every bullet fired, every ounce of blood lost, every breath, God was there. In our deepest pain and sadness, the God of the universe is at the center of chaos. David writes elsewhere: “The Lord is close to those who are heartbroken and save the oppressed in spirit” (Psalm 34. 18).
In the ocean of despair, we have “a sure and firm anchor of the soul,” Jesus Christ (Hebrews 6:19). This world will never make sense, because it is terribly broken, fractured and wounded. Mass shooting against innocent lives, are just one example in this broken world. Families who plan to send students back to school must now plan the funeral.
Creation itself moans for now (Romans 8. 22), while Satan has his day, causing pain and suffering in all directions. But we can always find refuge in Jesus. We have hope, eternal hope, to share with those who are emotionally, mentally and physically wounded by such heinous acts. When tragedy strikes, we know that “we do not have a permanent city here, but we are looking for what is to come” (Hebrews 13:14).
Saturday’s shooting wasn’t the end. The killer will have neither the victory nor the glory he tried to steal; sin ends in death. The judgment will be called, and any act of violence will be counted on the day of judgment (Psalm 10:14-15) God is holy, righteous and just, and by name complete justice will be done (Hebrews 10: 30).
Victims are more than victims. All those who lost their lives were created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). Everyone has an eternal soul. Despite their sin, they were innocent of this man’s bullets.
I want my children to know that they are made in god’s image and that their neighbor is also. Do we value every human life for what every life says about God?it doesn’t matter your language, ethnicity, world view or religion. Every life is important to God and therefore to us.
For now, and for several days in our city, we are saddened by those who suffer (Romans 12:15). We try to see the light shine in these dark moments, and we put our hope and do not trust our own protection, our safety. or our laws, but in our Jesus.
our slight and momentary tribulation gives us an eternal weight of glory, especially of comparison, without paying attention to what is seen, but to what is not seen; because those who see the are temporary, and those who do not see the other are eternal?(2 Corinthians 4:17?18)
From the desolate neighborhoods of El Paso, we look beyond the horror, which we have been forced to see, in the hope of what we cannot yet see.