There’s a heavy feeling in the air in my little town today. A heaviness in the general spirit of the citizens. Police cars stationed strategically at the schools, officers at the doors, heightened alert. Probably more prayers than have been prayed in a while. Lost sleep in parents who lay awake all night weighing the risk of sending their kids to school after the eerie messages of last night when the County School Board informed the parents and students that there had been some concerning threats but none they found credible. They were going to continue with the school day as usual but with increased awareness and law enforcement patrols.
Social media erupted with scared moms wondering whether to send their children to school today or not because, if we’re honest, an entity – no matter how good – making a decision to keep kids as safe as possible while also least disrupting their education is likely different from a Momma making a decision for the well-being of her child. No matter how loving and good and protective our school system is – and make no mistake, I do greatly appreciate their measures for securing the schools and increased law enforcement presence, that love is still not comparable to what us parents feel for our children.
But neither is the love I feel for my children comparable to God’s love for them. It’s the closest on this side of Heaven, but still not His perfect love.
As I stood in my kitchen last night, frozen for a moment debating what to do and feeling so heartbroken that this is the sad world we live in, God called to my mind Psalm 139:16, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be,” and Matthew 10:30-31, “…Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid…” And I knew that my children’s lives were in His hands. He knows every hair on their heads and has ordained every day of their lives. He knew long before He knit them together in my womb the world they would live in and what they would experience, and He made them for such a time as this (Esther 4:14).
Thank God for His reassurance and reminder that my kids are on loan to me but ultimately they are His. Simultaneously, though, I could not bear the thought of them sitting at school afraid. That mental image makes me nauseous. So I told my boys this: “I will allow you to stay home if you want. I also fully believe God knows the number of your days. I don’t want to live in fear, but I also don’t want to ignore a precaution. It’s just hard to know if this is precaution or prank.”
And they chose to go. (Honestly, it’s probably because they don’t want to miss play time in football if they’re absent.) So they went. I hugged them tighter this morning and prayed over them before they went out the door, and I’ll pray all day.
As I drove my daughter to school and passed the other schools, seeing the police presence, it again made me sad and made my stomach queasy. Not just for my kids but for the ones who have something so deep, dark, and ugly going on that they would consider taking the lives of others. That is the underlying tragedy in this. Then that spills into public tragedy, and it’s just darkness begetting darkness.
May the light in my kids touch the dark places in someone’s life today. In the heavy spirit filling the halls of their schools today, may there rise up the sweet spirit of the Living God. May the prayers of God’s children shake the walls and bring revival. And may His presence calm their hearts today but embolden them to shine for Him tomorrow.