Last Friday’s tragedy in Connecticut still weighs heavy this Christmas season. And it should. One of these mornings we’ll wake up and it will be a distant memory to those of us who aren’t directly affected. We might remember it once in a while, but it will be history. And we will have moved on.
But before we get on with our lives, I want to challenge us all to do something about the latest school shooting tragedy. I keep hearing in the media about how something must be done–gun control, arming school staff, improved mental health. Something. But I think we’ve forgotten the most powerful tool in our arsenal. And the beauty of it is that we can ALL wield it daily.
So let’s pray. And while we should definitely pray for those affected by the shooting, that’s not what I’m talking about. Let’s pray for those individuals in such desperate pain that they feel the need to lash out at the world. At their families, at strangers, at children.
I was taking Thistle on her morning walk and having a chat with God. I wished I could have prayed for that young man who took all those lives–including his own. And it occurred to me that there are more people like that, poised on the brink of despair, on the brink of disaster. So let’s pray for them–God knows who they are.
I don’t understand how prayer works. I don’t know if we can avert future tragedies by praying for those who would perpetrate them. But I know God is listening and I know He can do anything. So please, pray with me.

• Pray for the mentally ill child whose parents don’t know what to do.
• Pray for the college student who feels trapped in a world he doesn’t understand.
• Pray for the mom who is utterly overwhelmed and thinks–sometimes–that she just can’t do this anymore.
• Pray that God will use US–you and me–to comfort, console and soothe the troubled souls of a troubled world.

You CAN do something. And so can I. So let’s get about our Father’s business. Today, now, and every day.