It was hour four.
We were barely into the new school day, the new school year.
It was hour four when the first police car came rushing past me on the trail where I was walking. It could have been going anywhere, but the most obvious, most straightforward destination was the public high school little more than a block ahead of me on the road…and my heart dropped.
Not two minutes later, another car with its bright lights shot past; the breeze in its wake reaching me where I was already walking faster…where I tried not to run.
I could hear more sirens in the distance. And by the time I reached the top of the hill, the street was closing down.
“Please no, Jesus… not this…”
Within minutes, parents began gathering on the street corners, outside the perimeter. And as I watched, an official and unmarked car pull onto the sidewalk in front of the first door, and men with serious faces and bulletproof vests pulled out a floor plan of the building, laying into it to study. And as a command center appeared to be establishing in front of my eyes, the text came through my phone:
“We are in a lockdown. I’m safe. I’m in [my class] right now and [the teacher] barricaded the door and has a bat.”
I stood outside the building, as close as the police would let me, and there was nothing I could do but picture my baby crouched at a desk somewhere inside while I texted her:
“I love you.”
It all passed in what was probably minutes, but felt like lifetimes. But even when the streets re-opened and the lockdown lifted, my heart just wouldn’t be still within me.
A little later, she came home and I went running to her and hugged her so close and she told me about the cries and fear and how she had felt so calm and I was so, so thankful, and yet my heart was not quiet within me.
I stood outside.
I had felt the earth under me as the unmarked cars drove fast to reach the high school in time for some as yet unnamed threat.
I had watched them unfurl the floor plan to the building.
I had to stand outside, feeling all the helplessness, while my baby girl texted me from the classroom – where the teacher’s desk, a baseball bat, and the bravery of the room was all that stood between them and a threat.
If it was over… why was my heart still hurting? It was like I was full up of all these feelings that were no longer needed, but had nowhere else to go. And it left me questioning where we put the fear and the anger and the horrible helplessness? And why do those feelings insist on festering long past a trauma point?
My heart in turmoil, I did what a mama often does: I turned inward and began to make lunch.
“What exactly happened, Mom?” Karsten, my youngest boy, walked into the kitchen with worry still in his sensitive eyes and voiced the question we all were thinking.
“I honestly don’t know.” I was auto-piloting the conversation. I just wanted to finish making the lunch and sit down for a while, not talk to anyone for a while, take deep breaths. “All I know is that it wasn’t an active threat, and it’s over now, but those are all the details I have. Don’t worry, buddy.” I wanted to laugh as I heard myself say the words – heard myself tell him not to be anxious when my own heart still beat so unsettled within me.
He sighed as he wiped fingers through his too long hair. “I just… I need to know everything. I feel like I can’t relax until I know exactly what happened, Mom.”
His words stopped me dead and I heard myself in them. I heard the disquiet, the unsettled beat of my own heart, and I heard myself not just that day in a moment of school fear and threat… oh no, I heard the echoes of my voice every time something has happened that I don’t understand:
“I just… God, I need to know everything. I feel like I can’t accept this from you God, until I know exactly what happened.”
I say it all the time. But when it comes to the heart of it, all my digging and demanding brings me more anger, not stillness – and certainly not peace.
Dear ones, I wish we had all the answers. I wish everything before us was perfectly clear and every pain came with an apparent and appropriate purpose laid out neatly at the beginning where we could see it right away. I wish that so, so much for myself and for you too!
But I believe that true heart stillness came not in the answers, but in the presence of God himself.
It’s strange because stillness is such a peace word, and yet, in our faith journey, it’s often a concept we’re fighting for. Stillness is not easy when the world isn’t still around you.
There are so many questions we hold in our struggling hearts. There are questions on issues that are very near and dear to us. And there are heartbreakingly questions that we might struggle with, fight for stillness over for every single minute of this life until we look into the face of Jesus himself and perhaps then see the answers in the scars on his hands and feet. [Won’t that be an awesome day?]
And until that day…the same day that all the tears will be gone forever…until that day, I think the best and only answer is to press on. We aren’t to the end of the story yet…
Lord, I trust in your unfailing love when my heart is unsettled.
Lamentations 3:22-23
Lord, I trust that your plans are good when they feel too hard.
Jeremiah 29:11
Lord, I accept what you give even when I can’t see the “why”.
Job 13:15
Through a mirror dimly…
Moment by moment.
Epilogue (of sorts): The first day incident at the hight school ended with the loveliest and best resolution possible in that there had been no malice or prank, but rather a horrible, frightening mistake that couldn’t be treated like a mistake until after the building had been secured. As always, we are so deeply thankful for diligent and compassionate first responders.
