Greetings Holy, Healthy and Happy People of God,

As I write this eNote to our faithful and devoted community of radical and contextually conscious followers of Jesus Christ, my heart aches for the victims of the Marshall County High School in Benton, Kentucky.  In times like these we are reminded that Jesus says in Hebrews 13:5, “remember I will never leave, nor forsake you.”

According to CNN, Bailey Holt’s cell phone rang incessantly, but the 15-year-old didn’t answer.  A mass shooting had just started at her Kentucky high school.  Bailey’s mother panicked at hearing the news and kept trying to reach her daughter, but to no avail.  Finally, Bailey called her mom back.  It was one of the final acts of her young life.

“She called me, and all I could hear was voices, chaos in the background,” her mother Secret Holt told CNN affiliate WKRN.  “She couldn’t say anything, and I tried to call her name over and over and over, and she never responded.”  Bailey died Tuesday at Marshall County High School in Benton.  Another 15-year-old, Preston Cope, died at Vanderbilt Hospital.

Our own Dr. Manny Sethi, Director of Trauma, and his team at Vanderbilt Hospital operated on many of the students and on Preston who later died.  Tragic events always happen at the most untimely moments.  Please pray for Dr. Manny and his staff.  These moments as a surgeon are unforgettable.  Thank God there are no surprises or untimely moments with God.

As Christians, we get to help people understand that God didn’t cause this horrific action.  But that doesn’t mean that God wasn’t present in the moment.  To see God’s love in tragic moments is extremely difficult.  We know that there is a greater plan, which we may not understand, but we must try and have faith that God‘s plans are greater than ours.  The Prophet Jeremiah tells us, “For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”  Jeremiah 29:11

Our hope rests in the hands of a faithful and loving God even in the midst of uncertainty.  Please take time to pray for Bailey and Preston’s families, the 15-year old shooter and his family, the other students who were shot, but survived and their families, the teachers and principals, the students within the county, law enforcement, and that community and other parts of our beloved world where there is pain and disbelief of lives being cut short.

Let us celebrate in the midst of the pain that Bailey and Preston are children of God and are now in the presence of God!

Hear the Words of Wisdom,
“We are Easter People!”

Remember to pray The Lord’s Prayer every day at 12 Noon!

As always, remember, God’s will for us is good, we must do the rest!
Pastor Stephen