SHOOTING. MURDER. VICTIMS. TERROR. DEATH. HATE. FEAR.
Read those words again. I don't know about you but they make my eyes sting and my lungs feel tight with each breath. What has come to us living in a world where these words are no longer as 'shocking' or 'terrifying' as the honestly should be? Where people openly shoot and kill each other for whatever reason or no reason at all?
This post will not be about gun control. My family owns guns. My family shoots guns. And I know what they are capable of when used incorrectly. We have seen what they are capable of over and over and over again when they are placed in the wrong hands. I'm not going to tell you that NO GUNS will solve our problem. Because NO GUNS will not solve anything. Nothing at all.
I am a teacher. I have only "by law" been a certified teacher for the State of Florida for two years now, but I have spent the better half of my life working with, loving on, and teaching children. Something I have learned VERY quickly, is that children are happiest and most successful in proactive environments, rather than reactive environments. In other words… Kids need to know what is expected of them up front and they need to be taught how they are to behave and exist in whatever task is before them. That's being proactive. A reactive environment focuses primarily on "WAIT. I don't like what that child just did, so now I'm going to punish them." It's hard to establish a proactive atmosphere. Trust me. But it is easily ten times harder to continually teach and redirect behaviors (for what feels like forever) when you are living in a reactive environment.
With that being said, our world today is severely reactive. To the point where we react to just about anything. Rather than setting an expectation in place up front, we create rules that are in reaction to something that has happened. Our world is also really good, I mean REALLY GOOD, at sticking bandages on wounds that require surgical repair. Rather than properly cleaning and healing the wound, we simply get rid of it so we don't have to see it. Instead of figuring out what the problem is and where is coming, we seemingly would rather to just ignore it all together.
Where is this girl going with this? Is what you're probably thinking… Just hang tight. I'm getting there.
I'm trying hard to point us to the path that has us taking off our blinders. And looking into the eyes of the people we encounter and interact with everyday. You've heard the saying "If only you could walk a mile in their shoes, then you'd understand." Why do we have to experience what someone has experienced in order to feel for them or to help them or to love them. I know a man. I know a man who walked in our footsteps, alongside of us, amongst us. I know a man who went where no one else would wander, to help someone. I know a man who touched a sick and diseased man, so he could live another day. I know a man who carried His own Cross to a hill to die. I know a man who did NO WRONG, so that I could have the courage and strength to wake up each morning and find someone to love. I know a man that whispered words of forgiveness as He grasped His final breaths of air, so that you and I may freely live.
He never told the blind man, "Let me know what it's like to no see" before he healed him. He did it. He did it because He was and is the Son of God, who is Love. He did all the things He did on this Earth, because of love. A man named Jesus showed us what love is.
A man named Omar Mateen killed 49 people, and injured 53 more. He was man who desperately needed to feel what true love is. He was a man who was hurting. He was a man who probably cried out for something, and was ignored. He is easy to point fingers at now. He is an easy target to hate. Something I have done during all of this.
There are families and friends still trying to figure out how to breath tonight. There are families who are aching with holes in their hearts that will never be filled again because their "somebody" is no longer here. There are doctors, nurses, and surgeons working around the clock to keep hearts pumping and bodies living. There are officers, investigators, and other Law Enforcement Officials working overtime hours to try to make sense of this crime and put missing puzzle pieces into place. There is a city, a nation, and a world all falling to their knees asking for peace, mercy, healing, hope, and love.
The #PrayforOrlando hashtag has swept across social media. Here is my prayer for Orlando. Here is my prayer for this Nation. Here is my prayer for every soul that lives and moves and breathes in this world. Pray with me.
God,
We come to you with heavy hearts and blurry minds. Our reactive desires tell us to point fingers. To curse. To hate. You, God, show us each day with your cleansing mercy and overwhelming grace, that we must love. We must love, because you first loved us. You've loved us in our weakest hours and our most shining moments. You love us when we do our best to cut you out. When we think it's best to walk away and do this on our own, You take off running after us. My prayer for the people of Orlando, the families and friends of the victims, is to somehow find the strength to continue to love each other. We ask for You to wrap us in Your unfailing arms of love.
In Jesus' Name I pray,
Amen.
I pray that you do not make this historical event about gun control laws, or sexuality, or religion, or race, or ethnic background, or even terrorism. I pray that you open your eyes, your heart, and your soul to see that this is an event about people hurting people. For what?
We must stop looking for someone to blame and bring it back to the basics of what it means to live among each other in our home. This beautiful world we call our home. We must always seek to understand, and not to judge. We must seek to listen, and not be heard. We must seek to help, and not to hurt. We must seek to build up, and not to break down.
And above all things we must seek to LOVE. Love regardless of gender, race, sexuality, ethnicity, religion. Regardless of anything at all.
The God of love does not look at our souls differently. That's just not who He is. We are all His. We must do as He has always done, and love.
Love came down to this world over 2,000 years ago in the form a baby boy, and love will one day come again to take us all home. Love always wins. Love will always win.
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