How do I - an outsider watching the details trickle into newsrooms in disbelief - begin to deal with the indescribable events that have occured at VT? Questions form exponentially. I have absolutely no personal connection with anyone on campus, but in my mind it is much to easy to transplant the chaos at VT to the college in our own town. The emotion is mind-boggling. And I am as far removed from the trauma as an American could be. What must these families be experiencing? Calls for healing seem to be echoing from all around, but can “healing” from events such as this happen on command?

Life is this frail. Evil is this real. And it’s a shame that it takes horrific events like this to remind me. But God is still good. And I trust that He holds VT in His hands today. If today we are all Hokies, even more so, we are all God’s.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.
~ 2 Corinthians 1:3-11

(HT to Foolish Sage for the logo)