It’s easy to get numbed by numbers, especially when it comes to bad news. We hear so many, and all day long.
But it’s different when the numbers have names, isn’t it?
In their photographs, they’re smiling back at us – images caught from earlier days – cheerleading, basketball games, first communion, a party in the backyard. Kids being kids.
The heartbreak of their parents, loved ones and friends is unfathomable. Depthless. There are the teachers, Eva and Irma. And then the nineteen children: Xavier, Uziyah, Alexandria, Jose, Tess, Amerie, Jayce, Jailah, Miranda, Annabell, Jackie, Ellie, Althia, Rojelio, Makenna, Nevaeh, Maite, Eliahana and Layla.
All of us at Focus on the Family are deeply grieved by this unspeakable tragedy, and we invite anyone traumatized by this event to reach out to our Counseling team for a no-cost consultation. Just call 1-855-771-HELP (4357) and ask to speak with one of our licensed or pastoral counselors, and one of them will get back with you as soon as possible.
We’ve also created a Facing Tragedy resource page. It is filled with wise guidance for helping you, your children, and other loved ones navigate heart-rending situations like this one.
Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, will continue to dominate the headlines, as well it should. We should never get accustomed to death and violence, though many do. Maybe that’s because it’s all around us – and there are people fighting hard to maintain the cultural status quo.
Predictably, loud voices are trying to make this latest tragedy a matter of guns. There are strong opinions about the Second Amendment and gun laws, but my attention is on the violent culture of death we have fostered and furthered with reckless abandon, especially the cultlike obsession with keeping abortion – the killing of children – legal.
In the pro-life community, we grieve the loss of every innocent life taken early because of evil. But the inconsistency of pro-abortion forces is breathtaking.
Several thousand children will die from abortion today. Many of these abortions will take place in quiet neighborhoods. There’s a Planned Parenthood only a few miles from Focus on the Family. There might be a few people praying out on the sidewalk, but most won’t notice or think about what’s going on inside. Flags won’t fly at half-staff. Most of the children killed aren’t given a name.
We can agree that anyone who shoots a child in a school is evil. The profile of the school killer has become familiar. They almost always come from broken homes, suffer mental illness, have struggled with drugs, been bullied, live a life awash in violent video games or violent television or movies. They’re void of hope and desperate for love and attention.
I also believe abortion is evil. If you disagree, you’re not being intellectually honest. Whether a child is murdered by a gun or in the womb with medical instruments and a cocktail of chemicals, it’s still the tragic ending of a young life. The only difference is a matter of a few inches and time and the fact that a doctor gets paid to do the killing. We cry when a child is killed in a school. Politicians and radical activists cheer when a child is killed in the womb.
Eight states (Alaska, Colorado, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, and Vermont – along with Washington, D.C. – allow abortion right up until birth, with some wanting infanticide legalized.
Candlelight vigils and flowers mark the deaths of 21 innocent people, but abortion activists march, chant and firebomb pregnancy resource centers.
We find ourselves at this dark chapter of history because we’ve allowed the foundational institutions of society – specifically the Church and the family – to be attacked, maligned, and mocked. This disregard and disrespect have produced chaos and crisis in our communities. We have reaped the whirlwind of generations of anti-God activists.
I’ve always been puzzled by these radicals. As a struggling 15-year-old orphaned young man, they would do everything in their power to prevent me from embracing Christ at my public high school through my football coach. They would seemingly prefer I die hooked on drugs, drunk in an alcoholic binge or using sex to soothe my pain.
It makes no sense – like the killing of 21 innocent people earlier this week.
There are no easy solutions or quick fixes. But if you allow Christ back into the public square, you’ll have a better society. Jesus is the “Prince of Peace,” because He brings order to chaos and hope to the hopeless – two things we are in desperate need of today.
Focus on the Family stands ready to help. If you or a loved one find yourself managing a tragic circumstance, please reach out to us.
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Robert says
-Our culture is broken, Yes!
But no non-active-military person ever needs an AR-15.
And if the Church would stop fighting for my right to carry a gun so i will be able to shoot someone if the need arises, then we might be able to have meaningful discussions about all kinds of issues. Why can’t we have the heart of Jesus, Peter, and Paul as they interacted with Jerusalem, Corinth, Athens, and Rome?
As long as the “church” keeps insisting on *MY* rights, we just increase the cultural divide, with both sides hating the other more and more, and the voices on both sides getting louder and louder.
Elvin Lerew says
-Wonderful article. Well thought out and so true. Thanks for stating the obvious that so many can’t see.