This has not been a normal year. This week was unsettling as news spoke of the tragic deaths of eight people in Atlanta, Georgia. I am saddened and heartbroken by the needless loss of life, and yet angered by its occurrence, as it has now become all too familiar. So much so that many shrug in silence and look the opposite direction as if to say; “it has nothing to do with me”, and yet it has everything to do with us. Each of them, without question, woke up that day expecting it to be normal. But it was not. It was not business as usual; it was not just another day, as their pleas for help spread across the airwaves and television. They were completely unaware of the adversity that awaited them. Correspondingly, news would reveal as well, the young man that committed such an atrocity belonged to a church, a body of believers. A statement released by his church said, "We watched Aaron grow up and accepted him into church membership when he made his own profession of faith in Jesus Christ." We pass our days absent of any regard for the things happening around us nor do we consider the same. “Poof!”; and suddenly it is gone. We do not get to choose how we go, only how we live.
