I Have Questions, But No Answers

When I began this blog, my goal for it was to be purposeful, intentional writing---not just rambling or venting my fluctuating emotions.

Yet tonight, I sense this post may contain both.

"Rejoice with those who rejoice. Mourn with those who mourn." Romans 12:15.

I believe that is why hearts, hundreds and thousands of miles removed from today's tragedy, are broken--- because we mourn with those who mourn. And yet, I often feel a guilt with my own mourning, because I wasn't one of those in the school desperately trying to survive a horrific calamity. I wasn't the mom who sent her new kindergartener off to school five months ago with that nervous anxiety mothers of kindergarteners face----What types of worries do mothers feel when sending those little ones off on their first day of school? Separation anxiety? Will they make friends okay? Fall victim to a bully? Get hurt on the monkey bars? Feel homesick, or maybe not homesick enough?

I'm not a parent. I don't know, and can only try to imagine, what stress mothers, fathers, or guardians face when sending their babies off to school. But surely, having an entire kindergarten class wiped out five months after that first day would not appear to be the most likely, realistic, logical concern, would it? Questions---like these and others---crowd my brain.

Nearly a thousand miles away, I feel sick. So how are those directly in the midst of tragedy, not only coping, but even making it through the night? When is crime a result of mental illness, and when is it purely an act of evil and free will?
 

I have questions, but no answers. I always hear how our mission on earth is to bring about a more Christ-like world. But in the midst of such unexplainable calamity, our efforts to create a more Christ-like world seem futile and---tonight I wonder---do they even make much impact? Can our acts of love measure at all against the violence and tragedy in the world? Are our efforts in vain?

I keep picturing the innocent, sweet, yet independent and spunky face of my cousin's little girl who just turned six, thriving in her first year of kindergarten. And my heart breaks for every other heart that is breaking tonight, through the loss of a child, adult, or an overall sense of safety and security.

I have questions, but I have no answers. I believe in God. I love Jesus. Yet neither of those qualities make me equipped to provide explanations for why this world often turns out the way it does.

Which is why, like the rest us, I simply find myself rejoicing with those who rejoice, and---right now--- mourning with those who mourn.