Why?

I'm sitting here at my desk and I've got the world at my fingertips -or so it seems, with all the information that buzzes and beeps and flies around in the endless land of the Internet - and I feel so broken by the things I read and see. At times I am grateful for all of the information I have access too....and at other times, I am deeply saddened, and feel hopeless and lost and so bewildered by this world we live in.

When I was little, I was terrified by the monsters I thought lived under my bed. I was afraid of wars, but they always happened somewhere else. I remember seeing 9/11 on the t.v. as I was getting ready to go to school that terrible morning. I was only in Grade 4, but I still cried. I still understood the pivotal change that had taken place. I became afraid of planes and anyone who looked remotely like the "terrorists" on the screen. I didn't understand racism then, and I feel ashamed of myself even now. I didn't understand, either, how people of any race or religion could  do such a terrible thing. And my parents couldn't protect me anymore. It was everywhere. The world was bad.  And suddenly I couldn't walk down the street without worrying about being abducted. I couldn't go to school without worrying that someone would bomb it. ( I realize this was ridiculous...but in this world I know now that nothing is impossible). I was so scared. So worried. I would pray and lay awake at night, wondering if my house might start on fire, wondering if a bad guy would break in and try to take something while we lay peacefully asleep. I lost hours and hours of rest, worrying about what-ifs and maybes.

And as I grew older, I got a little wiser. I gained confidence and slowly, I learned that bad things don't happen all the time, just sometimes, and only to some people. I learned that we have smoke detectors and locks on our doors and heightened security and amber alerts. I learned about our societies "just in case" safety nets. So I was safe. I could sleep.

Now I sit here at my desk and the news scrolls slowly down my screen, and I feel so lost and scared. I can't help remembering that night in September, so long ago now, as I cried myself to sleep. I kept thinking about my classmates talking about the people who called their loved ones from the plane, the people running down the stairs as flames engulfed and destroyed the buildings no one ever thought would be a target. I remember looking at my mom tearfully, asking her "Why?" and all she could say was " Because, Amy, sometimes bad people do bad things."

And now I am back there, back to that night....I am back to my 10 year old self, except now I'm 20 and this world is coming at me a lot faster than before, and this time its a school and man my own age who did it, and I'm laying awake for hours, thinking "why?" "why?!" "WHY!?!?!" "Why children? Why an elementary school? Innocent lives, lives yet to be lived? Babies, just babies!""YOU SHOULD KNOW BETTER! You were there, you were alive, you saw that September morning, you saw the sickening sadness, and now you're causing it AGAIN!?!?!"

Why.

And my heart is broken for those parents who sent their kids to school that day. My heart is broken for the families of the teachers and parents who lost their lives trying to stop a mad man. My heart is broken for a world where a man can walk around with a weapon used in war, a weapon capable of unimaginable destruction, and somehow it is justified because it is a "constitutional right?" I am angry, I am so full of rage at the injustice, I don't know what to do with myself. And then I think about how I have no right to even feel this way...those aren't my kids, those aren't my parents, that's not my town or my school....but I can't help it! The sadness flashes across our t.v. screens, the candle light vigils flicker pain across the  face of the entire planet and I wonder how in the world this kind of tragedy can happen?

...And then I think about the children who are killed everyday in the genocides of Africa.

I think about the children lost in the sick and twisted and disgustingly dark world of  child slavery , prostitution and pornography.

I think about the children that don't count. The ones aborted because someone decided that they aren't "technically" human until such-and-such a date, so it's okay to get rid of it. "It" being a human life.
The ONLY difference between you and me,  and those babies getting killed is that they're on the inside and we're not. They don't have a voice...it's drowned out by women who want rights....I wonder if they think about human rights...

I think about the children in war zones, who's homes and families and lives are destroyed by weapons manufactured and detonated by full grown adults, the ones we're taught to think "know better."
I think about the children starving. The children who are dying with empty, distended bellies while I sit at my desk and eat stupid trail mix because I'm bored.

And I feel like there is so much that is completely wrong in this world. So much that is broken and seemingly irreparable. And I have to remind myself to breathe, to breathe in and breathe out, and that crying will solve nothing - tears are just salt water and we have plenty of that already.

 I have to remember that my God is real.
Somehow He holds this broken world in His hands. And I do not understand, I know that I will never understand the horrors of this planet, the tragedies that threaten to cripple me until I can't move for fear of my heart crumbling to pieces because of the hurt that happens here....I have to tell myself over and over that He's got it, this whole world. He's got the little babies, the lost and the scared,the wind and the rain,the dying and the diseased, the oceans and the sky, the mom's and dad's struggling to feed their kids, the broken families, the tired and the weak--He's got them all. And He's got me. And I don't understand how He's holding it all ,all of this brokenness, how the world keeps spinning, and we keep breathing and breaking and breathing and breaking.
But He's got it. He's got this whole entire messed up world in His hands.

I feel compelled to say that it would be easy to give up. It would be so easy to say that my God doesn't care about these children, or the wars, or the violence, or the hopelessness, because "He let's it happen." I could be like a lot of people and say "He obviously doesn't care." But I know better than that. I know so, so much better. I know hope. I know peace and joy and love. I know that even when I don't understand, I will choose Him, I will choose the hope that He holds out to me. I will trust in my Rock and my Redeemer.

Why? Because my God is good. And evil things happen in this world because there are evil people, and we all have a choice. We choose our actions. God does not make anyone do anything. He made us, but He did not break us.. We broke ourselves. We're fallen.

But God? He is good.

 I.Do.Not.Understand. I never will. But I will seek rest and comfort in His arms because I have looked at this world, I have seen the pain, the total destruction, the agony of children being lost, and I am desperate for something -for someone - good. And He is the only One.