“Oh Sara, I forgot to tell you. There was a shooting at Chattanooga State.”
In was the middle of month seven. We were out in the middle of the farm country in Ecuador. Although I was thousands of miles from my Tennessee hometown, several pieces of it had their way of whisking their way to me.
Stay calm. I had seen school shootings on the news. They happened at Colombine or Virginia Tech- but surely not to my city. We always think that things like that happen in other places far, far away but never in our own backyards.
Surrounded by Ecuadorians, I kept my composure. “Do we know who the shooter was? Was anyone killed? Who were the victims?”
My teammate responded, “I don’t know details. I just briefly saw something about it when I was at the Internet café.”
The odds of someone I knew being involved was slim. Surely if someone I knew was affected, I would have been contacted. Nevertheless, we headed up to the café to get more details.
As it turns out, the incident was not at all what I expected. It was much, much worse. Rather than a school shooting, it was an attack on military recruitment centers, and it was flooding the national news.
The headlines were covered with statements about ISIS. ISIS? What did they want out of Chattanooga?
I keep reading. I see the last name.
No.
My heart drops into my stomach at high speed. This time it’s different. It’s not a stranger from a foreign country. It’s one of our own. It’s a man from our own hometown who was known and loved by many. It’s the brother of my sweet friend from college.
In these third world countries, I see so many horror stories, yet this one that is so far away hits so close to home.
I imagine so many worlds falling apart.
I imagine the shock of his family who never saw it coming.
I feel for the way that his mother must be grieving despite the path he went down. I ache for the thought of how a mother should never have to bury her own child.
Which brings me to the the families of the victims and how they never expected their soldiers to be in danger outside of combat and how the news must have cut like knives into the gut.
I think the criticism and animosity my friend and her family face with this situation that they never expected.
I think of the Muslim families hiding in their houses during their holiday out of fear.
I think of the pain on both sides.
The news keeps coming, and the plot gets thicker. A few days later, another story floods my Facebook feed. It’s a story of a tweet celebrating the shooting.
It looks like spam to me, and then I see the name. It is yet, another person I know. If the last story hit close to home, this one creeps in shadows around my bed.
My freshman year of college was the hardest year of my life. It was a refining point when
I had walked away from good community, everything I had never dealt with in my life had snowballed and found its way to the surface, and I was not surrounding myself with anything life giving.
The worst part is that it was nobody’s fault but my own. I had decided to take control of my life and painted myself into a dark, ugly corner. In hindsight, that hard year was the best thing that happened to me as it brought me from religion to pressing into Jesus and forever changed me in many ways.
The person on the news this time was someone I worked with that year. She was a delicate, soft spoken girl with a kind and gentle spirit.
Whether or not it’s good for me, I read the story.
As I gaze through, I have little flashbacks of that year. I remember her transitioning from the little, bubbly, blonde to a scarf-wearing Muslim but never expected this. I also re bet that year and my own transition from a joyful person to lonely and anxiety-ridden. I read the events and remember how they unfolded.
2011. Suddenly, I remember the way that I felt that year and a dry desert feeling I have not experienced in a long, long time and they way I thought I would never get through it.
From my little tent in Ecuador, pray peace into my bones and stand on my two feet ready to live out the day.
This particular day happens to be be unique to the year, because parents are coming to visit for a few days. On this day, I ride to the airport to pick up my mother whom I haven’t seen in months. Mothers and daughters, fathers and sons embrace with tears of joy.
This particular evening, as the lights go out and fingers strum on the guitar, parents and children worship together. Loving relationships, hard relationships, estranged relationships, everyone is in unity pulling down little pieces of heaven together, and what healing happens when heaven mets earth.
I sit side by side with my mother and see so much beauty and restoration, how once The Lord, begins working in a family, He doesn’t stop, how four years ago I would have never pictured myself as a missionary in another country surrounded by supportive and loving people, how my mom would have never dreamt of this lifetime opportunity.
This particular morning, I felt the sting of my past, and this particular evening, I am able to gaze upon The Lord’s redemptive work and how far my life has come.
The lonely, 19-year-old waitress would have never imagined for herself going off to serve throughout Central and South America with a college diploma under her belt. She didn’t even think she would make it through her first year. First she was so afraid to move out of her childhood home, then out of her city. She thought college would tear her to shreds and that living in other countries for a year might just demolish her.
But I stepped out in faith, I kept going when it was hard, I got my degree, I got onto that airplane, and I’m thriving. All I can do is gaze in awe upon the way that the scraps of myself were salvaged by a God who decided that I was not beyond redemption.
To that God, nothing is beyond redemption.
The families and friends of the marines can be comforted.
The family of the shooter can overcome the hardships which face them today and live in peace.
Christians, Muslims and other beliefs can unite in love and support one another in this grief.
To us, what happened in Chattanooga looks tragic- and it was, but to The Lord, there is no surprise and nothing beyond redemption. Even the darkest of situations can be woven into something so breathtakingly beautiful.
We can choose to add to the grief, or we can sow in prayer, choose against prejudice and see a turnaround as we choose perfect love.
“Look at the nations and be amazed- for I will do something in your days that you would not believe even if you were told.” Habakkuk 1:5
