And a Community Mourns

I think it will take everyone a while to move a little bit away from the events of this past weekend.  In the next couple of days, a mother and father will bury their young daughter, a sister will bury her sister.  Another family will come to grips that they have a murderer in it.  How did any of this happen, we will never really know.    Alex, the girl who was killed was an instructors where my daughter swims.  Her sister  is also in my middle daughter’s math class.  So, even though I don’t know them, you can see how small this community can get.   This family, that was probably worrying about paying for college, instead they are paying for a funeral.  It is unbelievable.  It is the punch in the gut that takes every ounce of air out of you just to imagine it.  But when I go to the guestbook I read over and over about people who are sending prayers, asking God to bless them, asking for healing and strength.  She “went home to the Lord” her obituary says and I can’t help but wonder how we can still have faith, actually how our faith can be even stronger at times of complete confusion like this?  But we do, for many of us  it is our “go-to” response. Her family, I am sure, did not see this coming.  Yet, as though all the angels at the ready, thousands of people from all over are lifting them up and holding them if only on a tether of prayer.  I, too, have a sense of urgency about praying for them and not only for them but also for the family of the boyfriend who killed her.  For him.  I wonder how I can have compassion for the boy sitting in the back seat of the police car weeping, but I do, and then I wonder, how can I not if I am to call myself a Christian.The weather has turned here, gloomy and dark and there is a chill in the air.  But the sun peeks out every now and again, in the form of compassion and love and in the form of hope and faith.