Prayers for Virginia Tech

What can one say? Thirty-three people lost their lives for a reason unknown.

I saw the headlines yesterday but just couldn't summon the courage to enter into that pain. I wanted to do it justice and have it be more than just information. I think we suffer from info-glut. This situation calls for empathy and compassion and not just more facts, at least where I sit. God help them.

To hear the first hand accounts of students, twenty-year-olds, jumping out of windows because the gunmen had just entered their classroom, it is too much. The professor of the German class who stayed as his students jumped out of the windows in order to give them more time to escape. The unknowing dormitory dwellers who never woke up. The parents who still do not know if their child is alive or dead. The parents who do know. God help them.

A professor in college, Dr. Bain, repeatedly told us, "Sin fragments. Grace and forgiveness brings us back together. Knowing God's profound love and allowing him to love us brings us wholeness." It is evident this is sin for it has torn families apart. It dis-integrates. This is not God's creation intentions. This is not his plans for us. This is not the kingdom to come.

Help us see, God, that Christ on the cross is the hope of the world and that we, your sinful, broken-but-forgiven people, are the ones who deliver it. Please help us enter into the dark, messy gruesomeness of our own souls so that we might find the courage of forgiveness and the power of redemption as you meet us there. Please pour out grace, mercy, and healing tears as these families offer you their lamentations. We pray that their tears would be healing, their grief not disappointed, and their friendships unbroken. Amen.