September 6, 2024 Thoughts and Prayers
September 6, 2024
Thoughts and Prayers
April 20,1999. I remember the day vividly. The first mass shooting in a public high school, it was Columbine High School, Littleton, Colorado. My heart sank. I cried like a baby at the heartache and pain I watched unfold on TV.
Late, Wednesday evening, I turned on the news and saw, yet again, another school shooting that left two teachers and two students dead, and nine others injured. I watched the press conference, and my eyes filled with tears when the governor asked all to keep the victim’s families, students, faculty, administrators and the community of Winder, Georgia in their thoughts and prayers. I later scrolled through social media and saw a colleague’s post on social media that said, “I’m not praying, God is aware of the gun violence in this country and is standing once again in the middle of all the pain and grief, weeping.” I felt his words in the depth of my soul. I agreed with every word he wrote as tears flowed once again. And then, I said to myself, I am not praying either.
There were so many thoughts going through my mind like, yes, prayer is a powerful tool. Yes, God knows the pain. Yes, God sees all the division and hate. Yes, God sees the children who are bullied and pushed aside. Yes, God sees the challenges with mental health. Yes, God weeps at the suffering inflicted because of high-powered gun violence. Yes, God really does care. And no, we are not puppets on a string. No, God cannot control the human desire to do harm. Yes, we need concrete actions that will bring about real change. Why. Why. Why.
Then I did a little research.
As of 2022, 416 senseless school shootings occurred since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999, 440 men, women, and children died, and 1243 injured. This is only through 2022, since then, we know of countless shootings that succeeded, and other shootings thwarted before the act to do harm occurred. In 2022 alone, there were more school shootings -46- to be exact, than in any year since 1999, according to the Washington Post.
Friends, something needs to change. Thoughts and prayers do not placate parents who lost a child or the children that lost a parent. Children should not have to live in fear of being injured or killed or traumatized from flying bullets in the classroom. Yes, I am a supporter of the Second Amendment, the right to keep and bear arms, but we have an epidemic in this country. More must be done to limit easy access to guns and to thwart gun violence.
May we be just as willing to lift our voice to advocate for change as we are to hold the victims of school gun violence in our thoughts and prayers. May we continue to support the right to keep and bear arms, while also supporting legislation for stricter gun control, better mental health resources, and safer school environments. This is not someone else’s problem; this is every person who lives in this country’s problem.
Unfortunately, we are more willing to ban books from children in the classroom than we are willing to protect and save the lives of children in the classroom…
Pray: Lord, we are sorry for the pain and suffering your people continue to cause one another. Help us be better. Help us to break down the walls and barriers we erect, guide us into healthy conversation about ending the carnage of children in schools. Lord, in your mercy, help us. Amen.
Together,
we are held,
in Christ’s love.
Pastor Kellie Sanford