Daring to be Des

After learning of the tragedy of yet another school shooting, I had a flurry of thoughts. Here they are:

• Thoughts and prayers- half of you don’t think and the other half don’t pray. No thank you.
• Faith without works is dead.
• If you have to experience it for it to matter to you, you are selfish.
• This is an emergency.
• If my rights take away someone else’s life, I don’t want them.
• Kids need therapy. Its better to feel like you failed as a parent now because they need therapy rather than other people knowing it when they kill people.
• Ignoring your child’s mental health needs is neglect and abuse.
• Ignoring your own mental health needs is selfish. Other people have to or choose to be around you, they deserve the best version of you.
• You do owe other people things.
• We are not lone wolves. We were created for community and we are responsible for that community.
• We all have hurts and flaws and fears. Normalize it.
• Just because something is legal, doesn’t mean it is right or good.
• Requiring someone to prove themselves fit to gain a privilege is part of the process for almost everything.
• I’d say 75% of the things that we are “bothered by” or angry about don’t really matter.
• I cannot separate my humanity from yours.
• I will not separate my humanity from yours.
• I will not forget that “they” are human.
• I will not forget that God views them with the same compassion and love that He views me in.
• I am a mother in my soul. When I became a mother and felt what it was like to play a small role in creation, I realized how precious it is. I became a mother to all children. I weep for the loss of “my” children. My heart is broken and my soul is shattered for the families who’s lives have been irrevocably altered on this normal Wednesday in this average August, in a community I didn’t know existed.
• The idea that grieving is a process that you get through is incorrect. You don’t stop grieving. You will grieve forever because that loss is forever. It will always hurt, just not as often. You will still have those moments when you still can’t believe it’s real even if it’s been 16 years. You learn to integrate the loss into your new life.
• You will measure time by loss. “that happened after daddy died so I know it was after 2009”.
• Your tears will become an offering and a reminder that they mattered. That they still matter.
• There will never be a good answer for “why”. Don’t look for it. The more actionable question is “how”.
• There is no way to make sense of senseless acts.