On Tuesday, a lost, broken soul senselessly and violently ended the lives of 19 defenseless, innocent children and two vibrant and committed teachers before being killed by officers himself. Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, now joins an ever-lengthening list of schools assaulted by gun violence.

Let everyone who hears say, “Come.” Come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:17).

Places where we send our children to learn and to grow, to play and to befriend, places that should be safe and life-giving, these places should never fall victim to violence of any kind and particularly of this kind –preventable, senseless, soul-wrenching.

And yet here we are. Again.

So often we wait for clarity, for God to dramatically intervene, pointing us toward the one true call of our lives. And then we are dismayed by the silence that meets us, the heavenly chuckle, the suggestion that to follow Christ you must follow Christ wherever and whenever He leads you –even if the path is a winding one and the destination unclear.

We want a clean intervention where only a messy and sometimes slow coming conversion awaits. We want to get to it, to get on with our good works, when sometimes we’re asked to wait, and to trust, and to simple abide in God.

In God

Death is vanquished
True solidarity is achieved
And trust, trust in a power and love greater than we ourselves could hope to attain alone, is secured.

After all, it is the Lord who is our shepherd. The Lord is the Lamb who sits at the center of the throne. The one who is all powerful and the one in whom we place our faith and are thus empowered. In a world that suggests to us that power and love cannot walk hand in hand, it is the Lord who walks with us in power and in love and in Him we shall not want.

In Him we are home.