A Window of Light

I spent most of the day in Columbia, SC interviewing the person who stars in my next book. It was a lot of driving and a long session of interviewing, but I was very glad I did so. The 4 hours I spent in the car, I listened to a few sermons, Christmas carols, and talk shows by pastors trying to make sense of the Newtown shooting. The time all by myself listening seemed to help me.

I heard many different viewpoints. Everyone processes grief in different ways. Some people, like me, need to be quiet and alone, and write their feelings down. Others want to try to solve the unsolvable. Others need to be busy, helping others. Others need to be in continual prayer. Some need to vent anger, some need to cry, some need to stare off into space. Some need to avoid it altogether and go shopping. (I have a touch of that in me too....)

All people seem to long for meaning in suffering. At least let there be a purpose and we can get through it! That is why senseless murder is so disturbing. What possible purpose can there be? I don't have the answer, but I have seem many posts on Facebook about parents hugging their children more, about recognition that our time on earth is an uncertain span and we need to use it more wisely, that we should never take our blessings for granted, that we need to pull together, and that God can comfort, even when we cannot understand where exactly He fits in this impossibly awful event. Strangers are reaching out to people they don't know, and offering condolences. What happened, whether due to malice, or mental illness, or both is inexcusable, and horrendous. But it is beautiful to see candle vigils, churches open all night, and people joined together in prayer. It is a window of light, beseeching God to somehow hold us together in a shattered world.

A few years ago, Asherel made little necklaces out of hand rolled cursive clay that spelled "Hope". At the time, Sue, my cousin from Newtown, who is the director of Children's Ministry in a church there and was a teacher of Sandy Hook School for ten years prior to that, asked Asherel to make about 70 of those Hope necklaces for the children of Newtown. It was the first (and I think last) sale of Asherel's clay bead business from her early teenage years. I pray that those necklaces and their message are still at hand for the children and families of Newtown.

Colossians 1:17,23 (NIV)
He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [23] if you continue in your faith, established and firm, and do not move from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven...

-save a dog- hollowcreekfarm.org