“Where can I go from Your Spirit?  Where can I flee from Your Presence?  If I go up to the heavens, You are there; if I make my bed in the depths, You are there.  If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there Your hand will guide me, Your right hand will hold me fast.

If I say, ‘Surely darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,’ even the darkness will not be dark to You, for darkness is as light to You.

…

All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.”  Psalm 139: 7-12, 16

Standing in my driveway talking with a gentleman who ministers to souls locked away from where society can see them, a question arose.  It was the Tuesday after the mass shooting in Connecticut.  The tragedy had captured all that I know in the difficult quandary of how…how could something so horrific happen?

The question being, “Where was God in this picture?”

That was what these young men and women had been asking him.  It was what I heard from youth struggling to understand and feel safe.  The challenge of “If you say God is real, then where was He that morning?  Why didn’t He stop it?”

My heart felt for him because sometimes in this line of work…when things go wrong, really wrong, you are asked why?  For me, I have often found that honest answers of “I don’t know the reason for that” work better than anything else.  More times than not, people can respect honest humility over the trappings of religious theory.

But all night long the question plagued me…

I had seen it on the face of my son.  I saw it in the heart of my mother.  It was on the faces of the staff and students at an elementary school…the underlying confusion, pain and concern.  While at an outreach, I had heard it in the words of those who humbly asked that Connecticut and those families be prayed for instead of them despite their dire situations.

Sadly I had heard it said from those on both sides of the spectrum. Those who don’t believe…well, this proves there is no God.  And from those too eager for God’s judgment…that He was not present because of our “sin”.  Really?  That is the best both sides can do?  It is just the same old, same old.  Denial and condemnation, evil’s two greatest tools.

Honestly, how we love to trivialize God when we have no answers…when we see the unexplainable and cannot humble ourselves to trust that we truly don’t know it all, let alone the whys.  While there was so much bad and so much pain, can we not find any good in this situation?  That is what we choose when we say He doesn’t exist.  And for those who believe in God but say that He wasn’t present because of the sins of our nation–the last time I checked, He died on the cross for us despite our sins being present.  Sin doesn’t stop Him from being present; it is why He came.

But what really bothered me the most was that I could clearly see Him there…

I saw Him moving ahead of this crisis, when the principal hired in two years ago and placed a top-notch security system in place at the school to protect the children.  Those measures slowed the shooter down, alerted the police, and silenced the issue could they have done more.  Those measures alone, that wisdom and inspiration, probably saved many more lives than we will ever know…

I saw Him in the hallway as the principal and school psychologist, with an almost supernatural amount of courage and bravery, left the shelter of their meeting room and  threw themselves at a shooter armed with a rifle that would unquestioningly kill them.  It was there that I believe God met their hearts to give them an undeniable amount of strength to face death so willingly despite understanding that doing so would mean leaving their loved ones behind…

I saw Him in the office inspiring someone to turn on the intercom so that others would know the danger that was headed their way, so that children would know their silence and obedience to their teacher’s instructions would save lives…

I saw Him giving courage and speed to the janitor who ran through the hallways alerting others that there was a shooter in the building, putting himself or herself at risk being in the open instead of vacating and hiding.  The path was being paved to bring this choice of harm to an end…

I saw Him in the wisdom, grace, and selflessness of several teachers who did all they could to protect the little ones He had graced their lives with. Granting them quick thinking, discernment and bravery to stay calm enough to hide them well…especially the heart and hands of the teacher who stood up bravely to the shooter telling him that her children were in the gym to divert him away from the classroom…there 20 lives or more were saved in those words, those cupboards and closets–in that wisdom…

I heard Him in the whispers of a teacher who cupped each child’s face in her hands and told them how much she loved them because that was the last thing she was afraid they would hear.  Oh, how the bells of heaven must have rung that someone in such a horrifying situation would listen and know to speak of love at that very moment…

I saw Him in the bravery of the first responders who came in numbers willing to give their lives to end the madness, to save those who were wounded, to hold those who had or were departing, to comfort those scared beyond measure, to do all that they could despite the tragedy, pain and trauma that laid in front of them…

I saw Him in the responses of schools and hospitals as they did all they could do to protect those in their care…frightened but continuing the work in front of them with grace, discernment, and focus…

I saw Him in the face of Sandy Hook’s funeral director in his desire to confirm what God wanted each of these families to know…their loved one was special…to this world and to Him…

I saw Him in the kindness of a reporter who gave the friends of the shooter’s mother the chance to speak of her.  To do so without quick judgment and condemnation, allowing us to see something other than our fear and all-too-easy answers…

I saw Him in the words and the faith of a father who had lost his little girl…when he told the family of the shooter how his heart had broken for them too…showing us all compassion, forgiveness and a humility that rose above the clamor to hate and condemn…

I saw Him in horror of a nation that has fallen on its knees in pain and agony wanting so desperately to comfort those that lost so much that day…

I see it in all the hearts that are rending at this tragedy, who are turning to prayer, and seeking Him for understanding instead of turning away from Him…

You see…life always comes back to a choice.  It began in the garden with a tree and His instruction, but what many miss is that forbidden fruit also came the ability to choose.  And…almost always, our choices impact others…

Some for the good and some for the bad.  And though God designed us with that capability of choosing, that tremendous power to act for the good or for the bad, that choice–our choices and the choice of that shooter–doesn’t mean He is not present.

Always He is.

His Name means “I am”.  “I am” means present.  It is the verb that means current, at this time, in the here and now.  He is always here.

And it is there that the hardest question lies…what about those 20 children?  Those young souls that had to face the unthinkable, the unbearable, and the horror of it all.  What about them?

To me, that is where the toughest part of faith lies…for it is the unknowable.  Where, at first glance, horror, pain, and grief seem to reign.  It holds the power to make every person, parent and child fear.  It snatches and grabs at our peace, even our faith, causing us to doubt and question…was He present in such agonizing craziness?

But…if we are willing, can we see Him there also?  Can we find it in ourselves to believe and trust that He was right there with them.  Comforting them, calming their fear and anxiety, holding them fast in His right hand and leading them home…

Is it our vision skewed by fear and tragedy that has blurred the understanding that God is always present and always in control?  No matter how hard that shooter tried he could not separate those children from the loving arms of God.  He could not trap them in that fear, horror and pain forever…for while he may have been armed to end life, he did not and does not hold the keys to heaven or hell.  Not for those children and not for us…

So let us not give him such power…let us trust God that in that darkest moment, His light shined brighter, His peace filled 26 hearts, and that His love has and will continue to connect them with their loved ones for now and forevermore…

He was present, is present and will always be present in all things.  Choose to trust Him in this moment.  For it is the gift–the choice–He has given each of us…

“Through Him all things were made; without Him nothing was made that has been made.  In Him was life, and that life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”  John 1:3-5