That could never happen to me

How many times have we seen disaster or tragedy on the television and feel like we are distanced from those things. That those terrible things could never happen to our family, or enter our church, or come into our schools. My family has recently had one of these moments happen to us. A moment where we were seemingly feeling far removed, protected, and safe from situations that could never happen to us.

Austin had a little boy produce a knife to him on the school bus a few weeks back. It seems that he just wanted to show it to Austin as he had done with several other kids that day. Needless to say Austin was not comfortable with that situation at all. So much so that he told Erin as soon as he got off the bus. Erin called the school immediately and the school called the boys mother and she found it in his bag. It turns out it wasn't even this boys knife. He had gotten it off of another boy that morning at school, who was also showing it to others kids. You can imagine the things that started running through our hearts and our minds. You never think things like this would happen around here, especially not to your kids.

It turns out that both of these boys are good kids who just got caught up in the excitement of showing this knife off to their friends. It does not sound like they had it there at school that day to harm anyone. More than likely the boy just forgot to take it out of his book bag before he went to school that day, a very innocent thing. However, both of the boys have been suspended from school for 2 weeks and have an expulsion hearing tomorrow, in accordance with what I have been told that the law demands. Over the years as we have watched school tragedies play out before our very eyes on TV, we have become less tolerant of children carrying these types of things on their person to school. That is probably a good thing...how can we take these things lightly with the experiences this nation has had in the last ten years in schools? Sadly though, with as concerned as Erin and I are for Austin's safety we would never wish for these boys to be expelled. What a difficult thing for our school administrators to have to deal with. They have handled this whole thing very well and I know it has affected them deeply. Our prayers go with the families of these two boys as I am certain these are tough times. My prayer is that God would guide these leaders in making the best possible decisions.

This whole experience reminds me that knowing God doesn't mean that harm won't come to our life. It doesn't mean we will be pain free, nor does it mean that we are safe from tragedy and difficulty. What we do have with God is someone greater than us that we can lean on for help, and provision through these difficult times. This has been a very stressful time and trial in our lives. I believe it has affected all three of our older kids and has possibly given them a flashback to what they dealt with before they came to live with us through adoption. Through it all we have learned to just place our trust in God because these events are out of our control. We are powerless to do anything. However, God is all powerful and we will lean on Him and I pray that all that are involved in this situation will lean on Him as well. Blessings, Your Dreaming Pastor