In Memory...

Today my husband is going to an elementary school. He is going to walk into the doors, say hello to the security guard, get his badge at the office and walk to the lunch room. He will sit down with a class of first graders. He is there for Jaqwan. A 6 year old, first grade boy. Ryan is his mentor.
Those first graders love when Ryan comes in and eats lunch with them. While he only works with Jaqwan, Ryan makes sure to talk with all the little guys around him. They are a lively group. Because that is what first graders are full of. Life.

Newtown, Connecticut had that life horrifically crushed out. Evil beyond comprehension. Pure, absolute evil. The loss of life is tragic any time. The loss of a child's life is unthinkable, unimaginable and so deeply wrong.

It renders me speechless.

I mourn for those that lost loved ones on Friday. I mourn for the loss of innocence that the children in that school had robbed from them. I mourn for the brokenhearted. I mourn for the parents who's baby did not come home.

I mourn and I pray.

I pray for peace. I pray for comfort. I pray for loving arms to hold them tight. I pray for gentle words to soothe aching souls. I pray for supernatural peace and comfort that man can not give.

Today, I pray.

Psalms 147:3 ~ " He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds."

So instead of posting pictures and stories of my boys like I had planned today, I am going to just ask you to pray.

When I was in college, the male R.A of my brother floor lost all three of his sisters one day before his wedding. They were bridesmaids, on their way to a shower. They were all killed in a car accident.  It was unthinkable. They were all in high school, vibrant and oh, so beautiful.

I was reading my bible, struggling to understand and grieving for the entire family, when I stumbled across this passage. It became my prayer that day and now, it is my prayer today. While looking up Ephesian 3:14-19 in the NIV, I paralleled it with the Message translations. I like the ease of modern language of The Message.

So, here is my prayer.

Ephesian 3:14-21 ( The Message translation)

^14-19 My response is to get down on my knees before the Father, this magnificent Father who parcels out all heaven and earth. I ask him to strengthen you by his Spirit—not a brute strength but a glorious inner strength—that Christ will live in you as you open the door and invite him in. And I ask him that with both feet planted firmly on love, you’ll be able to take in with all followers of Jesus the extravagant dimensions of Christ’s love. Reach out and experience the breadth! Test its length! Plumb the depths! Rise to the heights! Live full lives, full in the fullness of God.

^20-21 God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us.