Life Stopped

There are presents sitting under trees that will not be opened. Gifts that were planned to be bought will now be left in the store. The receiver was snatched away and the givers are left too plan funerals instead of Christmas parties.

I sat reading news stories and staring at pictures telling the tale of the unspeakable horror that happened yesterday morning. I was simply aghast at what had happened. A few terrifying minutes was all it took before lives were turned upside down forever.

Families of the 26 victims have had life put on hold. Christmas shopping, parties, events...all that has ceased to be important. Their top goal has now become survival in the sea of pain and grief.

There are the children that survived carried away from that day in the arms of parents who did not want to let them go. Children who may have came away unscathed physically, but for the rest of their lives will not be able to forget all they saw and heard that day. The fear they felt as they huddled in dark corners and as their little ears heard terrible screams and piercing gunshots.

There are the police officers that combed the school for evidence and were forced to stare at the gruesome scene. Police officers that helped hysteric parents.
  Men and women who somehow managed to push words off their tongue to deliver the news of death. Men and women who will go home to their worlds intact, but will not feel intact mentally.

Tonight it is 10 days before Christmas. The day we celebrate the arrival of hope. 2,000 years ago when that tiny baby was born to a world oppressed by Romans hope sprang forth. Torture and death was rampant. Sin was rampant. Christ came to that world.

Yesterday was a cruel reminder of the curse of sin. Unfortunately we will live under that curse of sin till Christ returns. Hope. Can there be a tiny glimmer of hope in the midst of such repulsive sin? God has promised comfort, peace, joy, and love. God has promised a Savior. Yes there is hope for a broken and hurting world.

Everything in me aches right now for those who had to suffer in so many different ways. Pain is not right and the only hope I have is of a Savior who will rescue us from all this pain some day.