If only I had known. . .

It's really a good thing that we don't know what lies ahead.

"What's the name of the church where Renee works?"  

My brother-in-law's voice was anxious.

I answered his question and then he said "There's been a shooting at a private school in Nashville".  I knew it was not where my second daughter is.  I also was very grateful to know that it's not the school where my first-born grandchild teaches.

That does not mean I was not shaken.

When I opened my laptop for more information and saw the first photo -- I saw. . .

really blue skies and a lilac tree in early bloom and a beautiful church.

And this memory popped into my head:

It was the spring of 1979.  And for some reason, I connect the photo with a trip our family (at that time there were five of us) made to Nashville.

It seems 44 years late that it was a precursor to what lay ahead. Which speaks to me of the fact that we never know what lies ahead.  

When three mothers got their children ready for school on this past Monday, they had no clue what lay ahead.  

By now my three children are Christ-following, responsible adults - happily married, parents of outstanding children (sorry that's the grandma in me) making positive contributions to the world we live in.

That same world - where a person in pain - decided that she (or he and I hate that not willing-to-identify gender "thing") should take the lives of people she didn't know.  

My little family now includes educators and people who want to be educators.  And I hate to think of what could happen to any of them - or to the ones who are on airplanes often - or even simply driving from one place to another. 

If I were a worrier. . . 

Okay . . . since I am a worrier. . .

Fortunately, I know a few Bible verses that I have known since I was a child.  And I endeavor to let me thoughts embrace them when I feel frightened"

"Thou will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee". Isaiah 26:3

Like so many, my prayers have been with the families of the victims in Nashville as I remember the beauty that I saw in the photo of the church - where the skies were blue and the lilac tree was in the early stages of its bloom.

And the pain that lay ahead of me when the photo I remembered was made - by now . . .well - you know how it turned out. 

I understand that my pain is minimal - I did not lose a child or a mate or a parent.  I do know that I can only offer God's peace to anyone who has a broken heart.  And a wish that somehow

there will be enough 

sunshine to help them deal with the shadows.