We breathe in a sharp breath, it catches, it’s so hard to exhale. It’s hard to breathe, to cry, to touch, to hug. Everything hurts and everything stops.

The world has stopped moving, for a minute, a second, as we try to reconcile this madness in our minds. We cry out against evil, but it seems as though our cries are stopped by a million pillows. Muffled cries barely reach the air. The air is thin anyway, like those dreams where you cry out but make no noise. Someone has to wake you up.

Only we are awake. The thing we thought was a dream was real. A real, live nightmare playing out in front of our very eyes, and we can do nothing but feel those very same eyes well over and over.

How long? How long, Lord, will we watch the suffering of others and yet not move, not try, not change? Some cry out, and yet others are unchanged, unmoved, only ready with a defense, an excuse for the inexcusable.

Jesus, strike us. Convict us. Move us all, for only together, in unison, will we be mighty. Make us united in our grief, in our lament, in our shame. In our troubles and tears, make us one. Let us only point fingers inward and be willing to change, to be better, to do better.

May the God of peace grant us a peace that is beyond our imagination and at the same time let us feel incredibly uncomfortable and moved and filled with mourning until change comes forth.