I Was Too Desensitized.

On Friday I wrote a silly blog about Elf on the Shelf and subsequently spent the next few hours stalking Facebook to see if anyone commented on my little blog. In one of my Facebook-stalks I saw a headline something to the effect of “Shooter 20 year old with ties…” I did not click the link. I thought briefly about the headline and thought that it had something to do with some shooting from earlier in the week. Some shooting I can’t even remember the details of. 

It wasn't until I saw the deluge of posts about children that I thought of clicking that news article. But even as I moused-over the headline, I didn't think much of it. The word “shooter” didn't even register an emotional response from me. I am that desensitized to the news of violence that the words didn't even bother me. 

It makes me sick. It is a shame that we live in such a media-hyped-up violent world that it takes the brutal death of 20 small children to register on our hearts and in our minds. But how soon before we forget? How soon before I am again desensitized?

I put my kids on the bus this morning, turned around and looked at the path of destruction they left and thanked God for it all because if I didn't have them making the same messes every single day then I would have nothing. 

If I didn't have them and their messes, I would have nothing. 

I can’t imagine what those mothers are going through today as they realize, through their unimaginable fog of grief, that it is Monday and their children should be going to school leaving behind unmade beds, piles of dirty clothes and every light on in the house.

As I walk around my house today turning off the lights, I will remember the children whose lights will never be left on again.

Let us never forget. Every time we turn off lights behind our children let’s not forget those children whose lights are off permanently. Let’s not forget those children that witnessed this horrible violence; those children who won’t let their mothers turn off the lights for dread of the dark.

Let us never be desensitized to this violence.