I started writing a blog on Sunday and couldn't finish it in the wake of the Orlando shooting. I still wake up thinking about the mothers and fathers of those precious lives taken and parents that are left with empty arms and feelings of loss, loneliness and the question of, "Why?" Hate is a powerful emotion and some take sin as hate, when in essence forgiveness and repentance is love. Hate is what happened on Saturday and Sunday in Orlando. A young girls life was taken on Friday and then a massacre happened early Sunday morning all stemming from evil thoughts and hate.
Hate is a word that all of us have experienced. Anyone that says they've never hated is lying. Hate comes from a deep seated need to be right against all odds. Hate comes from fear. Hate is evil. How do we combat it? We love. We love human life. We love spreading the gospel so that no one ends up in the dark. We take the victims last moments and we remember them so that we proclaim love and Jesus so much stronger. You may not agree with a lifestyle, a choice, a financial decision but all of that is your opinion. We have been told in Scripture to correct with love and to spread the gospel with love. Love bears all things, believes all things, love never ends. Hate lasts for a moment and this weekend it was moments of terror. How do I know? Because a 20 year old is reading the texts of those that were in the bathroom. He is asking me why no one did anything. He actually cares about men that loved other men. He is asking all the right questions and wondering why no one stepped up to save the lives of innocent people.
Questions, answers and meditation, that's what my son was doing. He was questioning why? He cares. His first words to me about the incident was, "Mom did you know that tons of people were in the bathroom?" He's questioning and so is his generation and what are we doing? My answer to that is prayer. Like many in the Christian sector, we are praying for evil to be overcome by love. Hundreds stood in line to give blood on Sunday and Monday. Many chose to work on Sunday to give food to those giving blood and all over the world people heard of love out of tragedy. We don't need to be asking why the gunman did it anymore, we need to be asking for our Lord and Savior to turn evil into love.
Compassion is dying and apathy is growing. There has been no time in history where people could hear so much, know so much and care so little. Even I find myself turning away from events but lately I have felt called to be on my knees. I know I must be praying and giving thanks for all the lives that weren't lost and for the brave people who risked their lives to save others. I want my sons to be those kinds of men. To react in the face of danger, to be unafraid of evil and to be men of God.
If you walked away from the news this week, I implore you to take a different stance and pray that many that were in that club, that worked that incident, or that were bystanders would know the love of Jesus. Many died without knowing, that's where our sorrow should be. Let's pray that in our compassion and fervent prayer for strangers the light of Jesus would cover Orlando and that in the wake of much tragedy will be much love.
1 Corinthians 1-12 NIV
13 If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.