What Was Far Away

I was sad, as though they were my friends or family,
as if I were grieving for my own mother. Psalm 35:14

What was far away comes closer as the stories emerge of persons we knew nothing about on Sunday morning.

Death capriciously danced through a concert on Sunday evening in Las Vegas. A husband was taken, the wife left. A mother taken, the husband and children left. One friend is gone, the others are left to wonder why. Soldiers for generations have known that there is no accounting for who death will choose in a particular battle. Why leave one spouse to grieve and not take both? Of course marriages have been broken by death for as long as we can remember; it's even in the marriage vows spoken at the ceremony. And then, there was that grief from far away that came closer as we learned their stories.

David stated this so well in his psalm.

First it was just the names, but then the stories began to arrive. Unknown victims become persons with names, faces, families, and stories. We grieve over them though we have never met. Why? I believe that the Spirit of God grieves in us. Some will not admit to any such thing, I'm sure, but something connects us that we cannot explain. Someone grieves who is greater than us and we feel some of His pain. What was far away comes closer with this connection through our Lord God.

Bucky