Move Toward the Child

Three children, ages 5, 8 and 11, and a teacher were killed yesterday at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon. A 7-year-old and another teacher are in critical condition.

Before anything else, pray. Pray for the families who sent their children to school yesterday morning and will never bring them home again. Pray for the parents who spent a terrifying afternoon waiting to learn whether their child was safe. Pray for the hundreds of children who were in that building, and for the teachers and staff who will carry this for the rest of their lives.

Then let's be honest about something hard. The shooter was 16. Not long ago he was a little boy himself. Somewhere along the way he became someone who could shoot through locked doors to get at small children. That doesn't excuse one thing he did. But it should make every one of us ask: who was in his life? Who noticed? Who was supposed to be there and wasn't?

I've spent much of my life with kids in Moldova who grew up without parents. I've seen what happens to children when nobody shows up for them, and I've seen what happens when somebody finally does. A lonely, unwatched kid doesn't stay a small problem for long.

Yes, we'll argue about guns, school security and who's to blame, and some of those arguments matter. But no law can stand in for a father at the dinner table, a mother who knows her son's friends, or a coach, neighbor or youth pastor who notices the kid who is going dark.

Notice one more thing. When the shooting started, a member of that community didn't wait. They followed the shooter into the school and stopped him. Police arrived about three minutes later. Only God knows how many children are alive this morning because one person moved toward the danger instead of away from it.

That's our calling, and not just in a crisis but on every ordinary day: move toward the child. The one in your own home. The one down the street. The one nobody is watching.

"Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me." Matthew 18:5

Lord, have mercy on Bend.