The Mayor of Uvalde called the Democratic nominee for Governor of Texas a “sick son of a ——–,” expressing the sentiments of most Texans, on Wednesday, as the residents of Uvalde turned out to hear our Governor and Lt. Governor express the shared grief of the state for them.
Like President Biden the day before, Beto O’Rourke sees the shooting not as a tragedy, but rather an opportunity to gain political points with his extremist allies who want to take guns from law abiding citizens while law breakers continue to kill and maim. That truly is sick, as the Mayor of Uvalde pointed out.
We are in a time when we are so divided as nation, that we can’t even come together in our common humanity and grieve. How sad. It underscores why you and I must pray for and work toward a true revival, which only God can provide.
As we approach this Memorial Day weekend, let us take time to remember both our fallen heroes in the military who have sacrificed their lives to secure our freedoms. But let us also take time to reflect on this tragic massacre of innocent children, most of whom were only ten years of age, and the two teachers who died with them. And let us pray for the wounded who are suffering as they recover, some doubtless with permanent injuries requiring numerous more surgeries.
And let’s also remember the shooter, eighteen-year-old Salvador Ramos. He too was a victim. He was a victim of the epidemic of broken families that plagues our nation and will continue to produce more killers like Ramos until we address it. In researching his background for this newsletter, I verified what I suspected. As is so often the case in these shootings, his family life was closer to hell on earth than Heaven, as God intended.
Though we don’t want to address it in our culture because real families are increasingly rare, I want to remind my readers that God has a plan for every person born to be raised in a nurturing and structured home that is designed to make life worth living, if His plan is implemented.
And it isn’t a secret for just a few lucky ones to find. It is clearly outlined in His Word, the Bible. Intact families are the single greatest indicator that a child will excel in life. In a Scripturally structured home, there is balance between the nurturing mother and the protective father, who provide a safe environment as they seek to rear a child in the way that he should go. They set boundaries and require obedience, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad behavior.
Ramos was bullied because of his clothes, poverty, and perceived homosexuality.
The day before the shooting the community celebrated his classmates as they graduated from the high school he attended but dropped out. This certainly reminded him of his failing life, filling him with hatred and evil.
Absent in his life were the kind of parents that God intended. He never knew his father and his mother was unable to care for him due to her own addictions and failures. His grandparents did their best, but when his grandmother sought to prevent him from carrying out his horrifying mission, he turned on her and shot her in the face. He then proceeded to wreck her car as he fled away and walked into a school and started assassinating 18 children and two teachers, wounding many more that are now in hospitals suffering.
And this tragedy will doubtless occur again and again, until America disintegrates into a tangled mire of misery and finally dies, IF we do not experience revival.
Guess what, dear reader; that is precisely why Jesus called out his followers to become the church. Paul reminds us in II Corinthians when he writes:
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come:[a] The old has gone, the new is here! 18 All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19 that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. 20 We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. 21 God made him who had no sin to be sin[b] for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
If America is to be saved, it will require that those of us who profess faith in Christ to perform the ministry of reconciliation that He gave to us. Love covers all and we must love our fellow men as Christ loves us…unconditionally. As much as I disagree with President Joe Biden and Beto O’Rourke politically, I must love them and pray for them to see God’s truth and abide by His Word.
As we observe Memorial Day this year, lets also consider Uvalde and our responsibility to be Christ’s Ambassadors on the earth, entering into our Ministry of Reconciliation.
