Read This

I found this article of msn today... and it comes from the O magazine.

I think you should read it. Why? Because it explains so much... and I hope it makes you see that things aren't always so black and white.

I won't excuse what these two teenagers did... but I will say this. They were probably both very sick and needed help themselves. As Dylan's mother said... this doesn't excuse their reaction. But it does need to be understood that these boys were sick and are in need of forgiveness. Holding onto hurt and bitterness won't help.

And more than they need forgiveness, their mothers, their fathers, their siblings and other family members need forgiveness. Because they live under the burden of losing a loved one, not understanding that loved one's actions and feeling guilt for those actions.

I didn't attend Columbine and I didn't attend Virginia Tech. My brother, however, did attend Virginia Tech and he lived through one gruesome mass murder-suicide. It affected him deeply and was a very dark hour for our nation and that campus. But I'll never forget talking to him a couple months later and hearing him say some very mature and profound things.

"I feel for his family. He not only killed others, but killed himself. They lost a son both physically and the son they thought they knew."

My brother also feels pretty strongly that people should count him as part of the loss that day. You may not need to memorialize it... but it wasn't just 32 lives lost at Va Tech that April day. It was 33 lives lost.

I hope this article helps to explain why I feel so strongly as to why we need to remember that distinction. Those three men did horrible things. But they left behind loved ones who lost someone, too. And they lost the memory of that person. Don't know if that makes sense. I just know in my heart I feel sorrow for every person in this story and every side of it, too.

Someday we won't live in a fallen world and I for one can't wait to see Jesus face to face.