_-_James_Tissot.jpg) |
| Jesus Wept |
The horrific deaths of those whose lives are taken only because they are there causes us to ask, how can anybody be so entirely and completely mastered by such evil and wickedness as to kill and maim the innocent, especially children? And who would we ask, except God? I don't know if even the wicked perpetrators themselves would know.
This past Sunday's attack on the church family in the little town in Texas is almost beyond belief as to the heinousness that burst from the heart of the killer. I cannot wrap my mind around such evil to understand it. I cannot find the words to describe it. I read an article yesterday, though, by Janie Cheaney at World Magazine titled "The Terror of the Void" that gave me a little understanding. She was discussing the previous shooting in Las Vegas, and her thoughts could apply to any such violence as we've seen this past week.
She talked about evil being the absence of good. There is a void in our hearts that only God can fill with Himself and His goodness. When the heart has no goodness in it, that void is evil. Not filled with evil, but evil itself. God is the creator of all things, and goodness is from Him, but He did not create evil. Evil is the absence of God's good. It is that void without the goodness of God.
Janie Cheaney explains it so well, that I leave you with a link to her article. You can find it here. It helped me to understand a little more, even though it's still hard to imagine a person's heart so void of any goodness whatsoever that he could look at a baby's sweet face, see the innocence in the eyes, and continue his dastardly, cowardly, wicked, evil deed.
I've been thinking, how do we discuss this evil deed, or any evil, with our children and our grandchildren? How do we help them process what has taken place? I will ponder it more, I'm sure, but I think we need to help them understand that the absence of God and His goodness in our hearts leaves the void, the evil. And evil becomes the master. The more we love God and His ways, the more our hearts are filled with His goodness. And He becomes our master.
All I know is to pray for those who mourn and weep, and to ask for God's grace and mercy to comfort and console, that they will know Father God in a way that they have not experienced before. I pray that He will strengthen them in their spirit, in their physical being, in their hearts and minds. Only He can do any of that. He is Goodness. God is great and God is good.
Painting ~ Jesus Wept, James Tippot (1836-1902)
Wikipedia, public domain
