How and Why?

Today I’ve been cleaning the house, arranging things for the next week, checking off Christmas to do list, letting my kids mess up behind me without really fussing, etc. etc.  Today has been so different, today I've had a pain in my heart.  Today I've been more than ever thankful that I can look at my kids.  
The devastating news that came out of Connecticut pierced us all.  
How in this great nation could a man walk into a school and within seconds take the lives of innocent children??   How could he so unfeelingly shoot children as the others watched and cried out??  Who is responsible? 

How and Why?

I’ve been talking to God a lot.  Mostly asking How and Why?  
It started on Friday afternoon when right on yahoo.com were the following headlines…Bethany Frankel’s Marriage is Strained, NY Housewife Lashes Out, and Devastation after Mass Shooting at Connecticut Elementary School.  I could not believe the headline was right in the middle of the other petty crap that I usually read.  

While I cried I thought, 

How and Why? 

I wanted to go into the office and begin the process of a daily lock down practice.  I wanted to write a letter to every single government official to stop cutting funding that effect children.  Quit cutting teacher jobs and start cutting testing so that teachers are able to support and offer assistance to children who need more instead of busily turning the quiz manual for fear of losing their jobs.  Quit cutting funding and start cutting complicated laws that will allow for our Mental Health Counselors and Child Welfare Organizations to do their jobs.  Quit changing the laws that support everyone but children.  Make parents accountable.  If you can't take care of children, you will not be allowed to have them, and I am not talking basic needs...I am talking emotional needs as well.  Start providing security at every  school.   Take away every gun ever made and give them only to trained hunters, law enforcement, and military workers. 
And the list goes on.  
My mind was spinning with all that I wanted to write because I wanted to push the blame somewhere. 

I just wanted to know How and Why? 

That night the blame game continued. I laid on the couch torturing myself by flipping the channel to each news outlet.  I watched each “journalist” try to outdo the other, and catch higher ratings, by interviewing children and other victims before the dust could settle.  I watched one station explain “this was because schools will not allow God and prayer” (giving the illusion that God did this).  One explained it because “teachers are not allowed to be armed” (one more thing a teacher needs to be responsible for). One explained “how it was all because of guns” (taking away human accountability).  
We all just want to know How and Why?  How can we stop this and why did it happen?

I wanted to hear that it was a school that had no security, and that there were many warnings, and that it was a hoax…or some ridiculous explanation that would verify that this could never happen to me and that it didn’t really happen to another parent or family.   

I didn't know that Connor was paying attention.  He began to ask how and why questions, “This could never happen to us, right?” “We have lock downs at our school, right?”  “God keeps those children safe, right?”

I turned the television off and put his sensitive mind to ease.  Don’t worry, you are safe.  You are safe at school.   You are safe at home.  You are safe.
I'm thinking the truth is that monsters from fairy tales really do exist.  The worst kind of monsters exist.
How and Why?
  

The bottom line is- there will never be an answer to the how and why.  There will never be an explanation on this earth. And that is a very tough pill to take.
As long as free will exist, the bad exist with the good.
I believe that God weeps for those babies, their parents, the adults, and that community with us.   I believe God is with me when I teach, when I pray, and everywhere I go.

I am going to be cutting off the media/news for a while and offer only prayer.  My hope is that we can all come together and only bring the Connecticut Community our honest words and prayers.  

I have no eloquent words or answers to the how and why.
 I simply say to the Sandy Hook Community-  I don’t know you but I feel connected to you.  I can't imagine one second of what you are going through but I will continue to pray for you.  Even when the media dies down, the news vans drive away, and even when we all go about our daily routines…I will pray for you.  
I don't have to know the how and why for that.
 

For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness," made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.

The address for Sandy Hook Elementary School: 12 Dickenson Drive, Sandy Hook, CT06482
God Bless