On Friday

I didn't know if I was going to post today.  It seems like every time I turn on my computer, I’m seeing someone else’s thoughts on the tragedy that occurred on Friday.  And then, I refuse to read them.  I won’t read another blog post about what happened, I skim over someone’s status update as quickly as possible, I will NOT look at the picture collage of the victim’s faces.

I can’t.

My brain absolutely cannot wrap itself around the utter senselessness of what happened.  My heart cannot handle the hatred that begins welling up when I consider the horrifying scope of what the shooter did.  My mind cannot handle the fact that I shouldn't be feeling that hatred, that I should be better, able to accept God’s will and extend His forgiveness.

I cried once on Friday, when I heard the news.  After that, I stopped myself, and contained those tears that threatened to well over so many times that my tear ducts began to hurt.  To be honest, I don’t deal well with pain.  My response to my first marriage dissolving was essentially to anesthetize myself with various legal (and some illegal) substances as often as possible.  And this hurts.  It hurts to think of how young these children were.  It hurts to realize that some of these teachers were my age.  It hurts to see the news repeated over and over again.

It hurts, it hurts, it HURTS.

And, selfishly, it hurts me to realize that I am not as strong as I sometimes think I am.  That I could never bring myself to even consider forgiving someone if they hurt my girls, and that I am amazed by any parent that could be that strong.  That maybe I’m not relying on God enough.  That I’m finding myself getting mad at some of my friends, people that I love, because they’re trying to turn this tragedy into a political debate.

I don’t have a nice, well thought-out conclusion to all this.  I don’t really even have a point beyond expressing some of the feelings I've been suppressing over the weekend.  I just know that I’ll be praying.  Praying that I can learn to rely on God in senseless times.  Praying for comfort for all the families involved.  Praying for parents all over the nation that have to help their children understand what happened.  Praying for our country in general.

Just praying…