Mercy...

 

O Lord have mercy!

O Christ have mercy!

O Lord have mercy!

 

I pray this evening for a community who will never know the answers to the most basic, fundamental question: Why? Attempts will be made, offerings and reasons shared, opinions will be bandied about, but none will satisfy.

 

I pray for families that will never be the same again. For parents who were planning summer vacations and camps, but are now planning for funerals and memorials.

 

I pray for teachers and school administrators who have just begun to find some semblance of normalcy after having empty classrooms and desks from a pandemic, but who will now face empty desks for an entirely different reason.

 

I pray for trauma surgeons and medical teams who have had to deal with working on tiny bodies who have been torn apart by bullets, and then have to tell their families that there was just too much damage, too much blood-loss. "I'm sorry" just doesn't seem like it is ever enough.

 

I pray for churches and congregations where pastors, children's directors, and Sunday School teachers will struggle to be present for families that will never hear that laughter again.

 

I pray for all those who will play on the pain of such tragedy so that political statements and opinions will be raised, rather than choose to be with and comfort those whose lives have been so violently devasted in this despicable act.

 

And I pray for that one family that will struggle for the rest of their lives, second-guessing, broken-hearted, wondering why.

 

Lord, I pray. I pray not because I don't know what to do, but because I do not know where else I can go than to You, for You alone are holy.

 

Lord, in your mercy, hear my prayer. In Christ's holy name I pray. Amen.