Sunday afternoon I got a text from my teen that there had been another shooting. As I pulled up to the parking lot where I was meeting a friend, I quickly grabbed my phone to look up any information I could.
It hit me at the core as I found out the shooting happened at a church.
We, my family and I had just left church.
WE had just left church.
While we sat comfortably in our chairs at church, somewhere else in Sutherland Springs chaos was erupting; claiming the lives of 26 people, half of them children, including an 18 month old.
I woke up feeling weight in my heart, for the families of the deceased, for the community, for the church, for our humanity.
How do I explain such atrocities to my kids? How do I keep from not feeling that nowhere is safe? How do we as parents send our kids out into the world each day? Every time something like this happens we get bombarded with policies and politics, but none of that makes sense to a 14 year old, or a kid of any age. They just want to understand, they want to feel safe.
How do I explain it? How do I even process it?
This morning I sat in the parking lot of my kids’ school and listened to a press conference, one of the officials mentioned that many people across the nation wanted to help. She said the best way to help was to pray for the families.
While I cannot make sense of it all, prayer is what I will do. I will talk to my kids with honesty, even though I don’t have all the answers. I will pray with them for the people affected, for peace within our own hearts. I will hug them tight tonight. I will continue to send my kids out into the world, with faith and not with fear.
WE, my family, and the SDMB family, we mourn with those affected. We send our deepest condolences to the small town of Sutherland Springs.
