I'm Alive

If it's possible to place a cloud over the head of every American citizen it seems that a deranged kid did it.

The weekend was a strange collection of seconds that seemed to pulse with the dread that perhaps we had turned a corner into an abyss so dark and dreary that we may never recover. These were little kids who were gunned down. Children with the faces of angels, untouched by the pain of having lived, but unable to have tried.

And it was too much to comprehend, and too senseless to fight about. After a certain amount of grieving it was time to take a deep breath and understand that no amount of arguing about whether or not guns should be readily available without check was going to help.

In fact, all that could help was once again inside and around me. My own personal love and life was the only way through.

And in that moment of resignation that evil is all around us and won't likely be stopped no matter how much gnashing of the teeth that I do, I considered that there are millions upon millions of truly wonderful people out there who were grieving just as I am.

I suddenly felt alive in the knowledge that through faith there might eventually be a way to believe in humanity once more.

God is here. He's alive with us, struggling with us in the face of evil.

It's hard to keep track of God or love when you're counting the bodies stacked inside the door of the American school, or the American church, or the American movie theater.

But love is there just as God is still there.

I read a lot of people's opinions about this or that over the last few days. Some I agreed with. Some I did not, but at the end of all the reading I came away feeling empty as if there was no apparent way through such a struggle.

But there is.

Because I am alive and what will propel me and my family through is our love, faith, hope and belief in one another.

Friday and Saturday were days when each time my children spoke to me I thought of the heartbreak associated with ever losing them, and I considered those slaughtered children and how really angry and incredibly grieving that I would really be.

And I thought of God again.

And how that would be the only way through then too.

Yet God is not just alive in the preaching of a minister or the passing of the hat at the local church. In fact there are moments when that is where He may be the least alive.

God is alive in watching my boys root for one another as they played basketball, and needling one another on the way home.

God is alive in my wife saying, 'Give me a kiss,' or 'These meatballs are great.'

God is alive in the dancing of my dogs as they see me open the door and walk back into their lives even if I'd only been gone for ten minutes.

God is in my mother's voice when I call her to check in and hear her laugh about something that happened.

I'm alive.

God is alive.

It's all I can do to move forward and honor those who are not.

For no reason that I will ever be able to grasp.