Broken

Today, in the wake of the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut, I'm convinced the world is broken.

I've long wondered about the world we live in, and about some people living among us, but today has convinced me society is in fact, somehow broken. How can we ever put back the pieces after seeing the horror of today?

I had my oldest baby in Bridgeport, Connecticut, not far from where the children screamed today in that elementary school. I've driven on those roads. Shopped in those stores.

Newtown is quaint, and quiet. I often wished we lived there, instead of the town we lived in. I admired its beauty, its neighborhoods. I have a dear friend who lives there now. And by the grace of God, her daughter does not attend that school.

But twenty other children have parents who now wish their children didn't attend that school either. What spares one child, and not the next? These tragedies force us to look long and hard about what separates us from the families grieving today. It's not much. It's where live, what schools we send our babies off to every day. No one asks to be in the face of such a horror. Unfortunately, the horror chooses us.

I can't begin to fathom how anyone could look at a class full of kids, full of innocence, and pull a trigger. I can't imagine how mentally ill someone could be, how they could have been living among us and no one ever noticed how close to the edge they were. There is no amount of political commentary that could every fix or explain this tragedy.

There are no words for the pain inside.

I can't imagine how the victims' families go on, how the responding officer's who saw what they saw go on. How can anyone wake up tomorrow and feel the world is the same?

It isn't.

Hug your babies, and all the while pray for those parents who are waking up to the most devastating reality one could ever imagine. They are waking up to the nightmare they wish was just that, a nightmare.

Pray. Pray hard. Because after today, I'm convinced this world is broken. And we need to pull together to put society back together.  Change starts with us, because as everyone knows, kindness is contagious.

We can't change what happened today, but we can change tomorrow. I pray this world can heal, and somehow, somewhere, we can find peace.

Prayers, many prayers.