Unbelievable

It is just too much.
The news scrolling and updating and breaking this morning.
Too much.
Those babies.  Nic's age.

The moments I take for granted.
Singing Christmas songs in the car.  Practicing for the program at church.  Proud he has remembered the words and hand motions.  He's five.  And so brilliant and smart and loving and trusting.

Kindergarten.

School is a safe place.
An extension of home.  Of what I try to do here.  It is not the primary source of his knowledge.  It supplements the care and work and reading and singing and learning we do here.  Since I knew he was. Since he was a wiggle in my belly.
We do not send our children to school with any measure of thought that they will not come back home.  They always come home.  Safe.  Tired.  Ready to read books and play games and draw pictures.
We do not dream that they will not come back home.

Their parents.  I can not wrap my heart around the grief that must be tearing through them.
Will they re-live their morning?  Guilt over a harsh word?  See the sweet faces as they waved goodbye?  Touch a cheek where a messy kiss was hastily placed?  The nightmare I can not imagine and fathom how to pray for the parents.  The families.  Brothers and sisters and grandparents.

Video showing families clutching, hugging, kissing their children as they are walking from the firehouse.  Poor children sobbing.  Classmates lost.  Unable to understand.


Pray for those who are touched by this.  For the children.  For the mommies and daddies.

Kiss your babies.
Hug them.
Love them.
Live with grace.  Forgive.
Hold them close and thank God they are in your arms today.