Yesterday’s tragedy is very much still on the hearts of many people across America and the world…mine included. My heart breaks with the people of Newtown, CT. However, it also breaks with the rest of our nation. These were precious children and loving adults – precious lives cut short. So many people have asked why. A question to which there is no answer. Many people comment that it simply isn’t fair – and it’s not. It’s not okay, and it never should be. As I commented yesterday – I don’t want to be living the day that this sort of thing is commonplace, and when it becomes “just another day” in our lives. We SHOULD be outraged. We should hurt with those who are hurting. We should allow ourselves to be heartbroken with those who are grieving. And we are. Let’s continue to pray for the people in the community of Newtown, Ct – as well as those who are grieving alongside them. Let’s continue to show support and prayer for Newtown, CT – the victims and their families, the teachers and their students who witnessed this tragedy, the first responders and emergency personnel that are processing what they saw, and a nation that desperately needs it. Lives were forever changed, and will not ever be the same.

The personal reflection I am doing, however, tells another kind of story. Yes, we ARE outraged. However, I’d like to pose a question I’ve been asking myself. Where are all these prayer and emotions the other 364 days of the year? It shouldn’t take a tragedy of this magnitude to get us on our knees in prayer for this nation we call home. Along those lines, it should also not take a tragedy like this to make us give our kids hugs, to love on them just that much more. Yesterday, I said several times that (as I was holding one child and waiting for the others to get home from school) I couldn’t wait for them to get home so I could grab them up, hug them, hold them and just love on them. That’s something I should be doing every day. They need to know my love and how much I care about them, regardless of what is going on in the nation. Tragedy or no tragedy, my love for them remains.

My prayer for this nation is that we wake up. We should learn to love our families, our neighbors and yes – that stranger walking down the street. God calls us to love one another. He doesn’t say to love when it’s convenient, and he doesn’t say to love after an emergency happens. He has created us as community people. We need to link arms, and create a resolve that’s unable to be broken. Yes, our hearts SHOULD break when these kind of things happen. But, we should band together in unity during “life as normal” as well. America, Where is our passion? Don’t allow the passion you felt yesterday, and the heartbreak you feel today to disappear as the days go on. Allow God to soften your heart, and to keep it from hardening as life happens around us. Pray for your friends. Pray for your neighbors. Even pray for those you don’t feel worthy of prayer. Pray for the victims in CT, and especially pray for this nation.

May we, as a nation and through the world, never lose hope – and always know love!!!