I have a kindergartner

I have a kindergartner. Her name is Ava. She loves to draw and play "trash girls" with her friends at recess and buys pizza for lunch on fridays. She has brown curly hair, doesn't like to dress up too much at school and always has a headband on.

On cold frosty mornings, I drop her off at the curb of the brick, elementary school. I have never thought about an armed man storming the school and shooting her classroom and fellow friends. 

After last Friday, I have to think about it. 

It's something that's real and a very evil thing. Killing children and those who give their lives to serve them. 

It's a senseless act of extreme evil. Tears and a heavy heart remain. 

I wanted to do something. 

Make Ava's school more safe. Write more guidelines. Pass a bill. Raise money. Give money. Just do something. Anything. 

And while these are all things that may or may not need to be done. 

He just had one word. 

"Pray." 

And I thought, "Yes, but, what else?" There has to be something more. 

But pray? Just pray? 

Yes pray. Pray deeply in our souls. 

Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. James 5:13-14 

Pray for safety. Pray for Shalom (all things as they should be). Pray for our anxieties, our children and those families affected by this tragedy. 

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis pens a fictional and thought-provoking tale of a senior demon instructing several letters to a junior demon on the character of man and how to lure him away from the Enemy (God).

“For as things are, your man has now discovered the dangerous truth that these attacks don’t last forever; consequently you cannot use again what is, after all, our best weapon — the belief of ignorant humans that there is no hope of getting rid of us except by yielding.” The Screwtape Letters.

Hope. 

We have hope.

"For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven not built by human hands."