Loving our Enemies

So on a whim last weekend I bought People magazine. It had an article in it about Virginia Tech. I was reading it and 2 things caught my attention. First, it was talking about how the campus was dealing with this tragedy and apparently on one of the greens, there is a memorial consisting of 33 stones- one for each student that was killed. It then went on to talk about how 32- yes, 32- balloons were released in memory of the students who were killed. Um, why is there discrepancy between the stone memorials and the balloons that were released? Oh right...because apparently the shooter was not included in the balloon release. This really bothered me. The article said that it was student who added a stone for the shooter as part of the memorial. Good for that student- I think that is a good example of what it means to love our enemies. I was really dissappointed in the fact that a balloon was not released in memory of the shooter.

I am certainly not saying that what happened was acceptable. What I am trying to do is stir up a little compassion and godly love. I can't imagine the despair and darkness that the shooter was living in that would cause him to commit such an act of evil. But even the most depressed person living in the worst despair we could ever imagine needs some love in their lives. Releasing a balloon for the shooter may seem like a minor detail that doesn't really matter, but when you really think about it, it has deep implications of how our society views forgiveness and love. It may be hard to forgive someone who does something like this and it may be hard to love them, but God says to do it. If God says it, then do it. It's times like these that our character can be built and formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ....

In His Mercy.