So...

I'm not sure what to say. My desire to blog has been completely gone these past couple of days. The story that has unfolded reminds me of a made-for-tv horror plot with a surprise "God" ending.

There was a young man who had been raised by Christian parents and homeschooled. He had always been a little different..couldn't quite fit in. At 19, he enrolled in a YWAM discipleship training school. He was asked to leave before he completed the 10 month program for, among other things, playing Marilyn Manson songs on talent night. He was unable to constructively express his embarrassment and hurt over that, and in the next 5 years he began hating Christians. He started reading things like the manifesto written by the Columbine killers. Their words echoed in his head to the point that he could recite them. He began entertaining thoughts of killing some of these Christians, for who he could never seem to be good enough. He was able to buy guns because he had no prior record. He knew, deep down, that his parents loved him and he had no desire to hurt them personally. Instead, he returned to YWAM. He shot a few people there and went home. Then he went online to talk about how much he hated Christians, meanwhile hatching a plan to create abject terror at a church he visited once with his parents - New Life. He hated them especially for what happened to their pastor a year ago. Who did they think they were?

He arrived at New Life right after the late service, when the campus was full of people. He dropped smoke bombs at the main exits so everyone would be afraid to go through them, and then went in the far back door to corner people in the almost-full building. After shooting five more people with an automatic rifle, he was taken down with a single handgun by a female undercover security guard who had been fired from a police force 10 years ago for lying under investigation. She had just finished three days of fasting and praying for guidance and was in constant communication with God during the event. He guided her. It could have been a complete massacre.

I have pieced this story together from the many, many reports I have heard and read over the past few days. Some of it was from reading between the lines, and is not necessarily fact. This version of the story keeps playing over and over in my head. There are so many questions...

-God's power and protection is so evident in the whole event. Why did He not keep the two girls from dying? He obviously could have.
-Matthew Murray's parents did everything right - everything they knew to do. What went wrong? Why is there no formula to raise Godly children?
-Could there be a demonic element to this kind of behavior?
-In spite of SO many reaching out to Murray, he refused and rejected all help. Why? What caused his heart to be so hard? How could one man's hatred run so deep?
-What plan does God have for the hero, Jeanne Assam? I'd say somewhere in here is the direction she was praying for. You can't miss it!
-How can we as Christians, help hearts to be mended when they've been broken by us? SO much is expected from Christians, and we're just people. We do stupid, insensitive stuff in spite of how much we don't want to.
-How do Jesus' predictions of persecution of Christians interpret these events? By definition, those girls were martyrs - killed for their beliefs.
-Where is the line between not allowing ourselves to be controlled by fear, and being wise about the world we live in? Starting house churches to avoid public churches would probably be giving in to fear, but I can't say it hasn't crossed my mind and been suggested by other people.
-How long is it okay to mourn, and when is it time to move on? I do not want to wallow in grief, neither do I want to short-circuit the grieving process or sound stupidly over-spiritual.

and maybe most of all...

-What in the world does God have in store for New Life? Have we been under some sort of satanic attack? If so, why? What is satan so afraid of? We should have been down, off the radar a year ago. How will God use this for good, because He promises He will?

No wonder I can't sleep tonight. I suppose many of those questions will be answered, but only with time.

In spite of the tone of this blog, I'm actually doing okay. I'm sad, for sure. But I'm also immensely grateful to God and to Jeanne Assam, for seeking God and therefore being where she was supposed to be. Our church is having to suffer for a man's sin yet again, but one woman's righteousness protected us from the full impact.

Here's my plea: seek God with your whole heart. He promises you'll find Him when you do that. We need Him to heal our land. HIS people have to seek Him, and then He promises He will heal. Righteousness acts as a shield. We may never know what our faithfulness to God guards against, both in our lives and in the lives of others we don't even know. Never give up.