My emotions now are a freight train of feelings colliding with a passenger train of adjectives.

Anger.  Wrecked. Brokenhearted.  Shattered.  Shocked.  Sickened.

No matter how hard I try, there is no way to make sense of an armed man executing a classroom of 5-year-olds.  The idea of it is nauseating.  Seeing it carried out in reality has deflated me and left me with this empty feeling in my gut.  I want to rage against the senselessness of it all.  I want to berate the heavens for allowing such evil to walk this world.  I want to demand answers to all my questions.  But all that results in is a further emptying.  So I’m left in this dark place.  A place where children are murdered.  A place where evil runs amok.  A place that will beat you senseless and leave you wandering, unless you can find a light.

The mariners of old used stars in the night sky to navigate.  On an overcast night they were left in the dark, forced to stare at a dark void, hoping for the smallest break in the clouds so they could get some bearing.  Events like today’s shooting in Connecticut serve as cloud-cover to this sailor.  It’s dark, but I know there is light.  It may be temporarily hidden, but I know the light is there, and the crazy thing is, the darkness makes the light shine all the more bright.

The Light is Jesus.   At Christmas we often read Isaiah’s prophecy, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.” Today’s horrific news proves we live in a land filled with people walking in the dark, aimlessly wandering and, at times, damaging those around them.  Today, rather than rant and rave, I choose to point people to the sky, ask them to be patient, and when the clouds scatter, show them the Light so that they too may find their way through this dark world.  I choose Light over darkness.  I choose hope.  I choose healing.  I choose love.  I choose Jesus.