There was another school shooting the other day.

I know. You don’t want to read about that here.

You see the news every day. I do, too. It’s all there—school shootings, police shootings, gang shootings—but I think you want to know about this one.

It was at a middle school in Idaho, what we used to call an elementary school. A little girl in the sixth grade brought a handgun in her backpack and opened fire, shooting two schoolmates and a custodian.

Just so you don’t bail on me too quickly, I’ll tell you now that no one died. All three individuals have been released from the hospital, having been struck by the bullets in their limbs, rather than in the torso or head.

But it could have been worse. Except for the quick thinking and big heart of one teacher, it could have been a lot worse.

When she heard the shooting start, she did what her training taught her to do; she got the students under her immediate care to a safe place. But then she went to see if she could help in another way.

She tried to help the shooting victims.

While she was with one of them, she looked up and saw the shooter with the gun still in her hands. She didn’t hesitate; she didn’t duck and cover. She walked to the girl and, ignoring the danger to herself, put her hand on her arm and slid it down to the girl’s hand, covering the pistol. Then, calmly and gently, she simply took the gun from the girl’s hand.

You think that was heroic? Wait until you read what she did next.

She hugged the little girl to her chest until the authorities came to take her away. Hugged her. Because the teacher knew that somewhere, there were parents who didn’t know their little child was hurting people and needed help calming down. She hugged her and talked to her and loved on her until others came and calmly took her away.

I read the story and I wept.

I do that a lot these days—weeping, I mean. It’s just not usually when I read the news. I’m used to stories of tragic events—bad people doing bad things and getting what they deserve, or disasters overtaking folks who, through no fault of their own, are in the wrong place at the wrong time (as we would put it, perhaps wrongly).

I—we—get jaded and hardened. We hardly feel it, unless it’s someone we know or someone we identify with.

Somehow, try as I might, I can’t keep my mind from wandering. It goes where it wants these days. Perhaps it always has.

I remember like it was yesterday (well, the main points, at least). My parents had come for a week’s visit, and one evening as we sat talking, the conversation veered to a current event in our area of the country.  A group of teenage boys had been involved in a violent crime and their trial had recently come to an end with a guilty verdict.

“Good! They got what they deserved! Too bad that doesn’t happen more often!”

The words came from the cocky young father’s mouth with all the assurance of one who knew right from wrong and believed that justice was of the utmost importance. Others in the room agreed.

But then a voice, from the person in the room least likely (in my mind, at least) to be soft on crime, spoke up quietly.

“I’m glad there was a time, not too many years ago, when that wasn’t true.”

My dad didn’t need to repeat the words. This cocky young father looked at the floor, hanging his head just a little, and nodded.

“Oh, yeah.”

I haven’t always been the principled, upright person I should have been. An incident in my teenage years haunts my memories with images of mischief and destruction, along with a visit to the local police station and an interview session with a gruff old sergeant.

Guilty!

I was.

There had been thousands of dollars in damages and lost labor for a contractor whose employees had to wait, idle, for repairs to be effected to his property before resuming their tasks.

The contractor refused to press charges. He didn’t even ask for repayment of his lost labor expenses. I worked that summer to repay only the actual cost of physical repairs, a matter of a couple hundred dollars.

Mercy. Where I expected justice.

Grace. When my debt was beyond my puny ability to pay it back.

Love. When I intended harm to him.

And yet, in a matter of a few years, here was the guilty one calling out for a pound of flesh, for the stiff punishment of his fellow miscreants, without a thought for the debt which had been forgiven him.

Still, the years have passed, thirty or more of them since that day of remembrance and repentance.

The years have passed, and my heart again grows hard, driving forgiveness and mercy into the shadows. But, not so far into the darkness that the light of love can’t illuminate them.

Today, I remember again.

And again, I repent.

The Teacher, He who came with no other purpose but to shine that light, the light of Love (by His teaching, certainly, but ultimately by His sacrifice), into the darkness, made it clear to us.

“If you won’t forgive your brother when he sins against you, my Heavenly Father won’t forgive your sins against Him.” (Matthew 18:35 ~ my paraphrase)

I am without excuse.

I forget that, like the teacher holding that scared, guilty little girl in the school hallway the other day, our Heavenly Father pulls us to his breast, speaking peace and grace into our darkness while He loves us as only a Father can.

Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
(1 Corinthians 13:7 ~ CSB)

We will, in life, be disappointed in our trust in others again and again. Still, we trust and we hope. When we are hurt, we forgive. And we go forward in the company of other selfish, self-serving people who are just like us. We go forward knowing that Love is not weak but more powerful than guilt and shame.

A friend wrote the words on her social media page not so long ago, “I believe that love still conquers all.”

I don’t disagree. But, as I consider, I’m certain there is more.

Sometimes love simply wraps up the erring party in its arms and holds them close until they have no strength left to resist.

“Love never fails.”

Never.

 

God pardons like a mother, who kisses the offense into everlasting forgiveness.
(Henry Ward Beecher ~ American clergyman ~ 1813-1887)

But God demonstrates his own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
(Romans 5:8 ~ NET)

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2021. All Rights Reserved.