Thoughts and Prayers

My current feelings.

When I returned from my lunch break on Wednesday, I saw news of the San Bernardino shooting all over Twitter. I took a second, took a breath, and let out a deeeeeep sigh.

Is anyone else tired of this?

Really. Stop. Look at the above question.

Is anybody else tired, weary, exhausted of seeing/hearing/reading about gun-caused massacres?

I am.

Not soon after first seeing the event on twitter, I looked up the LA Times article and prepared to share it on Facebook (because that's what I do--I like hammering home the shit when it happens. I like drawing attention to all that's bad in our world. My hope is that, by doing this, people will be led to create change.)

So I started drafting the post. I typed out "My thoughts and prayers" and stopped in my tracks.

My thoughts and prayers? Ugh. That phrase is growing overused, which is a problem in and of itself. There have been more mass shootings than there have been days in 2015. The positive sentiments behind "thoughts and prayers," didn't feel deep or meaningful enough to convey my attitude and intention. So I erased those words and simply went with something along the lines of "Not agaaaaaaaain." to caption the news article.

Apparently I'm not the only one who believes "thoughts and prayers" are not enough at this point. President Obama said so back when the Oregon shooting occurred two months ago. But the New York Daily News took it even farther today with a headline of "God Isn't Fixing This."

What? God isn't coming out of the sky to magically stop violence from occurring? Wow, that's a real shock.

Christian friends, before you start to argue about the truth/falsity behind this headline, I want to explain where I'm going with this.

Throughout the Bible, God worked through His people. God used Moses and Aaron to demonstrate His power and strength over Egypt. God used Paul, who was formerly a persecutor of Christians, to spread the story of Jesus across the continent.

And God is still at work in his people. There are missionaries across the world doing unspeakably wonderful things in the name of God (and if you don't believe this, I can point you to some people with some great stories--just ask me.)


My point is that God uses His people to do ahmaaaaazing things.

So while the world stands back and says "God isn't fixing this," why aren't we standing up and saying "We, the children of God, the believers in Christ, will do everything we can to fix this." 

What if we are the answer to the prayers?

Christians, I'm looking at you. I'm looking at us.

What if we are the answers to the prayers of mothers who have lost sons, sons who have lost fathers, and friends who have lost those who they hold dearly?

We could be the answer to the prayers that ring out as sobbing tears of heartbreak overpower the words one could utter; the prayers that desperately escape in wispy breaths as possible victims hide in closets, avoiding shooters.

And I understand, there are many Christians out there who are doing something about this. But why aren't all of us doing something about this? Let's be the image of Christ on earth and stop standing for senseless deaths. Let us offer our actions in tandem with our thoughts and prayers.

In doing so, perhaps change will finally occur.

Find and contact your congressional representative and ask for the gun massacres to stop.