Photo: Jeremy Papasso – Reuters
Courage is to feel the daily daggers of relentless steel and keep on living. ~Douglas Malloch
It’s been a tough week in America. We are all having to come to grips, again, with another random, senseless act of slaughter and mayhem; this time it’s the Colorado movie shootings. TV and Blogland is rife with details, and all try to answer the question everyone wants to know:
Why?
Anyone who attempts to answer the question is going to fall short. My six year old who is just barely old enough to process such horror is starting to realize the world of reality is far more sinister than the Disneyesque existence he’s experienced the first five or so years. Somewhere around six he’s learned that people not only die and loss is unavoidable, but sometimes it’s even a result of something completely nonsensical that defies understanding.
Evil exists. That is what I told him, when he asked me the one word question, “Why?” We were at the beach and I turned on the news only for a few moments late Saturday evening. I had gotten word even while playing in the ocean tide and completely absent from technology. When it comes to the sensational and dreadful, word travels fast.
But why does evil exist? And a dozen other reasonable follow up questions that still, when boiled down to the core, come down to why. I don’t know and it just does seems like such a lame answer. Yet it’s the only truth I can provide. This is where our faith is tested. Many want to know how a good and loving God can allow this to happen. It seems reasonable to me.
I am not a theologian, just a person who is trying to navigate life and keep believing and trusting in a God who remains in control, even when I am not, and clearly the world isn’t it either. That’s where the rubber meets the road and your faith is truly tested. This is where choice actually comes in to play.
It’s essential to choose well in life. If we begin to doubt God’s goodness, it’s easy to then wear shades of cynicism and doubt. This causes us to pull back in life, unplug, and lament rather than to seek ways to alleviate suffering or bring about peace.
Events like this are always our reminder to hug our own families, and not get out the door without reminding them of the three little words. Eternal words our hearts can carry with us as a shield against the evils of this world! I LOVE YOU! Say it more. Say it TO more. Show it more. Live it more. Don’t hold back. Find those in life who are isolated and intervene with love.
I don’t know if the shooter James Holmes was adequately loved. Plenty of people don’t feel adequately loved, and don’t respond the same way. To me the scariest part is how someone can live a so-called normal life, and then something snaps inside them. It starts with a one-second decision, but from that point on, they decide to follow and promote a culture of darkness, evil, and death. It is one thing to acknowledge evil exists; I think that’s why so many people wanted to go see Batman. We love a superhero who vanquishes evil! It’s another thing to emulate evil and join it.
I’m sure in the days ahead media will analyze what caused this. Was it lax gun laws? Were the fictitious characters Batman or Joker responsible for his delusions? In the end, it won’t matter. Evil exists. We can’t legislate it away; we can only choose which trait we wish to nourish in our own life:
Good or Evil
I find it interesting that EVIL spelled backwards is LIVE. Even more true, is that when we speak and make our choices that value and promote LIFE by valuing others, even those that believe and behave differently than we do, we promote a culture that respects life. Jesus said, “He that tries to keep his life will lose it, and He that loses his life will save it.” (Luke 17:33)
The shooter will get his fifteen minutes of notoriety for his despicable act of evil. His potential for living a good and productive life are now completely over. He will live in that reality much longer than his few moments of fame.
Yet the victims of his carnage and their survivors will have the last word, because of the way they lived. Those will be the stories that the majority of people will remember: When superheroes stepped in, when the brave successfully rescued the injured despite personal risk, or when one sacrificed one’s self so that another could live—these people and memories are the people we became inspired by. They represent the love and hope we cling to.
Aurora and America will move forward. The families of the victims have no choice now but to live life and see it and appreciate it in all its magnificence, and sometimes heartache, not only for themselves, but they will be required to see with a vision for their loved ones whose lives were cut too short. In order to most honor their loved ones, they must rise above the evil, and truly live.
I pray the survivors can find ways to enjoy life again after their time of grieving, and even during. I pray they can eventually not dwell on the manner in which their loved ones died, but in the ways that they lived. I pray they can live without fear and love without limits. I especially pray they can find big and small ways to forgive others so that they may live in freedom and not bondage to that which they never had control of anyway. I pray they will know that God is good and that He loves them. I hope they feel the prayers of America and the world surrounding them during this devastating time. I hope every tear of sorrow will be redeemed and ultimately turned into tears of joy. Above all, I pray they live. I pray they live long, they choose to do good and love well, and that they live strong.
When we choose love and life intentionally in our own life, the oxygen is removed for evil to thrive and its roots shrivel until they die. Choose life. Choose love.
Isaiah 41:13
For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you.
2 Timothy 1:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.
LIZ LOGIC 