the silence of the lambs | what do we tell our children about gun violence in the sanctuary of learning?

It's not supposed to be like this. Just so we're crystal clear about that.

No one is supposed to walk into a grade school and slaughter children. No one has that right.

Someone has to say this clearly and compellingly to the children we are nurturing toward wholeness.

Today, and this weekend, and next week—long before we know why those children and their teaches were stolen from us, if indeed we ever come to know that fully—we will be face to face with kids who, in the teeth of this grotesquely efficient evil, question God and the adults who present themselves as being in charge of the world as it is.

We must tell the children it's not supposed to be like this.

We must tell them the God who spoke through the prophets at many times and in various ways—who in these last days has spoken to us by his Son—this God takes no pleasure in the suffering and death of his creatures.

We must tell them it's not supposed to be like this, and someday it won’t be.

We have to tell them the hope of the gospel includes a new heaven and a new earth where goodness is at home—we haven’t seen it, but in faith we see it coming.

In the meantime, we must tell them, life is grace and horrible things happen; people are capable of breathtaking acts of love and staggering acts of violence and oppression; the sun rises and the rain falls on people who are good and people who are horrid.