God is still restoring

When I heard about the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, I was so sad and couldn't imagine what it would feel like to lose someone close to me so suddenly.  I saw several facebook posts and heard people talking about it over the past few days, and the more details I knew, the sadder the story became.

I've never lost someone so close to me as suddenly as a gun shot, but I have lost a few through other ways.  The pain I felt was real and took a long to time start the healing process.  However, I can't even begin to imagine what the families and friends of the victims of the shooting must be feeling right now.  When my uncle Ryan died, a little piece of my world crumbled and went away.  It still doesn't feel real to know that he's in heaven rather than coaching football and teaching finance at Farragut High School in Farragut, TN.  However, my family and I at least had a little bit of a warning because he was sick with pancreatitis for several weeks and had complications.  But the families of the shooting victims didn't have ANY warning.  They were slapped in the face at 1 am to the heart shattering news that their loved ones' lives had been taken in an extremely unfair and cruel way.  That, like I said, is just plain unfair.  It isn't, by any means, a gentle way to leave.  It's mean and rotten.  It frankly makes me very angry that James Holmes thought it was ok to just decide to take people's lives when all they wanted to do was have a little fun and see a midnight premiere of the latest Batman movie. 

But, nevertheless, God is STILL restoring His creation.  Events like this make it very easy, at least for me, to doubt God's goodness and faithfulness.  But, it also proves His might and glory.  If God can take a world full of crap like this event and many others and turn it into a beautiful, pure masterpiece like what it was originally made for, then He's pretty awesome.  As He's shown me personally that our weaknesses make Him greater, I think He's showing it to all of us in a way that we didn't exactly expect.  He can take our sins and regrets and stuff and make us feel completely whole after it.  And, in the same way, He can take awful events like this that have tainted and dirtied His creation and make something beautiful out of it.