my heart is soooo sad today

4 Funerals have taken place today in a town I don't know and amongst people I don't know.


And yet I care and am affected by their deaths.

The darlings buried were 13, 8 and 7 (2 of them). A 12 year-old will be buried tomorrow. They died as a result of one man's struggle with sin.

Haven't we seen enough of what happens when we don't become reconciled to God, to others, and ourselves?

If I don't reconcile and stay reconciled, I may never go out and shoot innocent children. But I will hurt "innocent" relationships. Do you know what I mean? Have you been there? Are you there now?

I am angry and scared and soooo sad about these deaths.

And I don't understand. But I am ok with that. I believe God is ok with that too. I agree with Lizzy Fisher, an Amish grandmother, "“You think about them, you cry about them . . . and then you have to let go of things you can’t explain.”

But there are things I can do. Practice forgiveness. Send donations. Work on my "sin" issues. Pray for spiritual, physical, and emotional reconciliation.

This mourning Amish community of Nickel Mines is also doing something. They are practising "forgiveness, faith and a determination to move forward." An Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.

They are also sharing love. "At the behest of Amish leaders, a fund has also been set up for the killer's widow and three children." "The hurt is very great," Gertrude Huntington said. "But they don't balance the hurt with hate." Huntington, a Michigan researcher has written a book about children in Amish society.


Will you join me in prayer?

• For the family and friends of the dead girls
• Five more girls remain in critical condition
• The other students and teachers who were not shot
• Mrs. Roberts and her three children
• In fact this whole community