By John Warren

 

 Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

 

I am a person who is called to give comfort, strength, and care and still, there are things in this world that I just cannot understand how they can happen. 

I wish God would reach down and grab that gun, or hammer or whatever instrument we human beings have picked up to harm someone with, out of their hand and throw it across the ocean.  

My heart aches for the two-year-old innocent child who was murdered by her father. 

In one of my previous appointments, our town suffered year after year for five full years with children and youth suicides. 

A twelve-year-old girl went home after school went to her parent’s bedroom and pulled out her Daddy’s shotgun and killed herself because two girls in her class sent her notes saying, nobody likes you why don’t you go home and shoot yourself. And that is what she did.  

These were all good girls who went to church each week, and they spoke to someone in that way.  We saw all three of them regularly in our youth group on Wednesday nights even though they attended two different churches, two of the Lutheran faith and one Disciples of Christ, but aren’t we supposed to be brothers and sisters? 

For the next four years, there was either a boy or girl and one dad who either shot themselves or hung themselves. 

I guess what has triggered this article is my unending pain of watching these families deal with their loss.  

Not only for those who took their lives and their families but for those bullies who now have to live with their hurting words. 

What we need is one place where all people can go and feel loved because they are unconditionally loved, not because of their clothes or how they vote but even if they do not agree on every dot and every iota of life but instead vow to follow Jesus and love all people.  And all means all.  

We are all made in the image of God and God is to be praised and that means loving the ones made to reflect his love.   

It is hard sometimes but it is the narrow way.

As the Bible states, the easy way is the wide path and the narrow way the more difficult.

 

John Warren is Senior Pastor at First United Methodist Church, 502 North 6th Street in Orange.