Talk to Your Kids… [Active Shooter Alert: The Call No Parent Wants to Receive]

One fall morning in 2015, I received a call no parent wants to receive… An active shooter was reported on my daughter’s campus. And not only was the shooter in her immediate vicinity, but he was headed towards the College of Business. As she took cover in a professor’s office along with her classmates, we spoke ever so quietly on the phone. 

When the all-clear was given, her daddy and I stayed on the phone as she attempted to exit the building. Suddenly, there was a lot of commotion and screaming. We listened, intently. Even yelling out for her to answer. But all we could hear was her heaving breath, sobbing, and then silence… as she “played dead.” Knocked down and trampled by a panicked mob, she gradually gained enough awareness to make her way back into her professor’s office. 

Eventually, everyone was escorted to safety by the SWAT team on the scene. As she descended the three-story staircase spiraling down into the large foyer, she surveyed the colossal damage the morning’s terror brought to her small world. Luckily, this situation turned out well for my daughter, minus several, severe carpet burns. Apparently, the dispatcher had over-reported the “suspect” as an active shooter. But the “suspect” of college age, indeed was a troubled person… who had made some troubling comments.

So many of these stories don’t turn out well, and with such minor casualties. And we can never truly stamp out evil in this world, but with God’s help we can diminish it’s rule. Talk to your kids about shining God’s light in their little corner of the world.

Let’s teach our kids to be kind. Let’s help them notice the broken, vulnerable, and hurting by setting the example ourselves. Let’s encourage them to extend extraordinary grace and God’s unimaginable love in challenging circumstances. Let’s remind them every bully, or mean girl, is just another hurting soul acting out through their behavior. Let’s guide our kids to recognize every human being as valued and loved by God—even in the most unloveliest of conditions. Let’s remind them to stand in the face of injustice with compassion, mercy, and love. Let’s teach them to “do everything in LOVE.” – 1 Cor. 16:14

“To be so full of God’s love, I no longer fathom speaking an unkind word or committing an unkind deed.” This is my quest, join me?!

Let’s make it our life’s mission to accept the greatest challenge ever issued—loving an unlovable world with the heart of our Heavenly Father one challenging circumstance at a time.  💕

To LEARN MORE and join the quest by claiming your free devotional, The Love Challenge: How to Love an Unlovable World, click the link.