Today's Scripture Reading (July 31, 2022): Psalm 42
During the summer of 2000, Jacob Zimmer made a pilgrimage to Columbine, Colorado, and Columbine High School. He wanted to see what the High School looked like almost a year and a half after the massacre that changed life as we know it. Zimmer arrived at Columbine at the same time as a group of former students had gathered to celebrate a reunion. He went into the schoolyard and up a small hill worn down by the footsteps of those who had climbed the hill before him. He was a little disappointed that the thirteen white crosses which had once memorialized those who lost their lives on that terrible day had been removed from the top of the hill. Zimmer asked a student about the missing crosses. He was told the Parks Service had removed the crosses in favor of the permanent memorial being constructed inside the school. At this point in the conversation, Zimmer realized the student he was talking to had been inside the school on the day of the killings. She spoke about hearing the gunshots go off on that April day. At first, the students had thought that some seniors were playing a prank by setting off some firecrackers. But soon, she realized the real danger to which she and the others in the area had been exposed. She had hidden in a kitchen office with a group of other students. They had placed a desk in front of the door and tried to be as quiet as possible. The students in this office were among the first to phone the police to tell them that something was happening at Columbine. She told Zimmer that one of the killers had knocked on the door and asked to be let in, informing the students that he was with the police, but the students had simply remained quiet, hunkered down in the office.
Zimmer had gone to Columbine with a lot of unanswered
questions. On the top of his list of questions, far outweighing the rest, was
this one; Where was God as the guns were going off and the students were dying
in the school? One day, when he finally met God in heaven, it would be with the
names of the thirteen who died on that April day at Columbine High School. What
amazed Zimmer as he talked to this student, who had lived through the terror of
that day, was that it wasn't a question that she, or anyone else who had lived
through that terrible day, was asking. They knew exactly where God was on that
day. God was with the two propane bombs that would have leveled the school that
did not go off. God was in that kitchen office and the other rooms where
students hid, fearing for their lives. He was holding the hands of the
terrified and telling them how valuable they were to him. God was with the
students as the cliques and social structure which had reigned at Columbine
simply melted away. God was in every hug shared and every kind word spoken. God
was even with those who had surrendered their lives that day. For those who had
lived through the shooting, there was no doubt about where God was.
On April 20, 1999, we were all in shock as we heard about
what had happened at Columbine High School. But now, so many other names are
added to the list of the dead. All of them were lives that mattered to God. Today,
the list of the dead killed in school shootings and other mass killings is too
long, much longer than it should be. It is a list filled with the old and the
young, and every age in between. It is an evil that I struggle to understand
and an evil that David struggled with as well. I can comprehend the King's
questions emotionally. My tears, too, have been my food day and night while I fight with the question,
"Where is my God?" The
only answer I have found is that he has always been with me. And in my darkest
moments, it is then that he has held me.
Tomorrow's Scripture Reading:
Psalm 43