I don’t even know what to say today. I’m at a complete loss for words as I imagine every American is. What do we even do with this news? How do we function in it?
Do we plunge into despair with a “what is our world coming to?” Do we protest “no more guns” like so many have on the heels of such a tragedy as if that will fix the brokenness of humanity? Do we lose faith and trust in the good of people in the aftermath of a meaningless, evil act? These are all valid questions, living in shock after something so tragic. I am not sure what to do. All I know is my heart aches.
The only step that feels clear is the call to grieve and to mourn – the air is thick with its invitation. There is something about public grief that gives people permission to feel in ways they otherwise wouldn’t dare.
So today, I say feel it all. Feel the heartbreak, feel the loss, and feel the pain. We humans can be pretty good problem solvers – going straight into “how to fix it,” all the while floating above the event, studying it, trying to understand it with logic, as if there is anything to understand. Mourning doesn’t need logic, it is not an intellectual exercise. It’s less about analysis, and more about expression.
I imagine righteous anger is at the forefront for some – angry over something so heinous, angry for those who were directly affected. And even still, the sorrow must be felt. The sorrow for those who lost their lives, those who lost a loved one, those in critical condition, or those who escaped, forever imprinted by this trauma.
Today, for them, I choose to stand in the gap. To feel with and for, to pray with and for, to hold the tension of what happened and what in the world do we do next. To stand and say perhaps a very unpopular phrase today: I still believe in the goodness of the human heart. Even in the face of this, knowing I’ll be inevitably disappointed again, I still have hope.
And in that hope, I grieve… this makes no sense. And it never will. And that mystery is a difficult one to live into today. Before we make any movement to problem solve as if we can assure this from ever happening again, I say we enter into the loss – we allow ourselves to feel and mourn the weight of it. To put life on pause, even if for 5 minutes, and to redirect our hearts and bodies toward intercession for others. It’s so not easy, it doesn’t come naturally, and yet I believe it’s the way through.
Live In His Light 
Cortney thank you for this beautiful invitation to all, to grieve, to be just flat stunned, to feel impacted in the heart 100%by something unexplainable and unfathonable. We have family and friends who have been impacted by very critical injuries… shot in the head & in coma, another stampeded while trying a to help a person shot right in front of them and head hit hard on cement &in hospital ICU. Its hard to go deep in feeling the sorrow of loss and useless suffering when it all feels so surreal !! Yet we must ,as you admonish, in order to be fully human and Gods children. Sad…so so sad….
Well done Cortney. Thanks for standing in the gap for me.
This new style of mass homicide is becoming so prevalent I am almost detached. 9 people from IC were killed.