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Nevaeh Bravo, 10 - her grandmother is grief stricken by her loss
Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares, 10 - her father stated that he’s comforted because he knows that she would have been brave for the other kids in her classroom during the attack.
Makenna Lee Elrod, 10 - she used to leave cute notes around the house for her family to find
Jose Flores, 10 - celebrated being on the honor roll on Tuesday before the attack
Eliahna Garcia, 10 - loved to dance and play sports. Family was very important to her
Irma Garcia - a 23 year teacher at Robb Elementary that was murdered in the attack.
Joes Garcia - Irma’s husband. He died on Thursday from a heart attack as a result of grief. Jose and Irma leave behind 4 children. They were set to celebrate 25 years of marriage.
Uziyah Garcia, 8 - his grandpa described him as the sweetest child I’ve ever known. Grandpa was teaching him how to catch a football.
Amerie Jo Garza, 10 - a daddy’s girl. Her dad pleads that we don’t take life for granted and urges us to hug our family.
Xavier Lopez, 10 - The life of the BBQ. Loved dancing and doing tiktoks with his family.
Jayce Carmelo Luevanos, 10 & Jailah Nicole Silguero - Cousins who lost their grandpa 2 weeks ago. This family describes them as angels. Jailah asked to not go to school on Tuesday. Her parents said that it seemed as if she seemed to sense that something was going to happen.
Tess Mata, 10 - She was described as bubbly and wanted to be famous. Her father was at the school during the attack and had to be restrained from going into the school.
Maranda Mathis, 11 - 4th grade. Her brother, a second grader, was in the school as well, but was uninjured.
Eva Mireles, 44 - a teacher for 17 years in the district. Her husband is a district police officer
Alithia Ramirez, 10 - a talented artist who helped her parents with her siblings
Annabell Rodriguez, 10 - cousin to Jacklyn Jaylen Cazares. Both were in the same class at Robb.
Maite Rodriguez, 10 - “she was charismatic. She was goal driven. She was ambitious. She was determined. She was focused. She was competitive. Smart, bright, beautiful, happy.” Her mother wants you to hear that so that her daughter or any of the other children don’t become “just another face”
Alexandria Aniyah Rubio, 10 - at an award ceremony that day, she was recognized for getting straight A’s and getting the “Good Citizen” award
Layla Salazar - every morning, as he drove his daughter to school, he would play "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns 'N Roses and they'd sing along.
Eliahana Cruz Torres - her grandparents along with dozens of other parents and grandparents had to wait for 10+ hours to find out if their kids were killed in the attack
Rojelio Torres, 10 - His mother described him as a very “smart and loving child”
If you haven’t imagined…. Why?
If your heart hasn’t been ripped out of your chest… how?
These are our babies.
If you have only had a thought and a prayer and while you were “down on your knees” and you didn’t ask God for a tangible action to participate in... what’s stopping you?
If you have made this about logic… we can reread those names.
If you have not thought FIRST, how do we protect our babies at all costs…. who would it take to die? Your kid? Does this have to hit as close to home as your own family for you to actually empathetically “go there”?
I can’t even look at my kid since Tuesday without feeling a sting in my heart for those families that will never be able to look at their kids again. The grandparents with a hole in their heart. The tight knit 20,000 person community that’s been completely destroyed by this tragedy. First responders who have to collect the little bodies of our babies… I cannot stop thinking about it. It’s been overwhelming to me… to be honest.
I’ve had a horrible week. I mean… gut wrenchingly hard. Incredibly financially stressful. Exceedingly painful. Mentally challenging. And it is NOTHING in comparison to what these families are going through. Nothing. Matter of fact, I’d go through every single minute of pain, every single minute of depression, every single minute or the last 2.5 years, HAPPILY if I could guarantee that my little girl would be safe from harm. Any one of those parents/grandparents/friends in Uvalde would do the same.
I found myself checking Facebook a lot this week. A lot. That might not sound like such a big deal, but for ME, in this season… it is. It may seem like I’m active on social media, but I am not. I have put myself in “protective custody” from social media in this season. Honest reasoning… I’m just not strong enough sometimes. I need to control what goes into my soul and one of the ways I’ve had to filter out the toxicity of the world has been for me to avoid social media.
For some reason, I was checking it a lot this week though. You know what I kept looking for? SOMEONE to say “protect our kids at all costs.”
Thoughts and Prayer AND protect our kids at all costs
Guns don’t kill people, people kill people AND protect our kids at all costs
It’s harder for me to get crutches approved through insurance than it is for me to get a weapon made to kill the most people efficiently AND protect our kids at all costs.
Protect our children. Even at the cost of a liberty that was established on December 15th, 1791. That’s 229 years ago… when the right to bare arms meant a single shot musket and gunpowder and a 5 minute reload time and established against the backdrop of the threat of British tyranny.
Gun rights AND gun reform. At all costs.
I’m not ignorant enough to think that there is an easy solution. Especially when all I see… per usual… is people on both and ALL sides avoiding empathy. Turning our eyes back to our regularly scheduled programming versus trying to LISTEN to each other to PROTECT OUR CHILDREN AT ALL COSTS.
I can’t get past this part. I still can’t get past this point.
I started thinking that I had to make a statement this week… I guess that’s the pressure of ministry, right? People look to you for an example, to a certain degree, of how to feel, think, move… My spirit only asked what will You have me DO God? And I could only lament. I could only cry for those families. I could only dial into the people and the families OVER the details and the policies. That’s all I could do…
I kept getting lost in the weeds of the details… and the time it took to storm the building … and the gun used… and the lack of empathy in peoples posts … and the mental health… and the YEAH ALL OF THIS MATTERS but the BABIES.
I have a tattoo on my right wrist. It’s the WWJD letters. I tattooed it so many years ago and it’s STILL to this day, the question that, when I’m the most lost OR the most found… I rely on. What would Jesus do?
Last night, it felt like God was whispering this scripture.
Mathew 19:14
“Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.””
I looked the scripture up and … obviously… at face value, it was clear. Jesus wanted to protect the babies. They are important. Duh. Right? That’s what You mean God? I mean… God… that’s obvious. Right?
Yes. But. I can’t remember the last time a scripture that I’ve studied didn’t mean profoundly MORE than the words that I read. So I studied it.
You know why Jesus even had to say this? There’s a beauty in the simple truth that Jesus spoke. I agree. But HERE… in this moment. You want to know why?
In Matthew EIGHTEEN (right before chapter nineteen and written in close proximity) in verse 1, the disciples ask Jesus “who then, is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven?” Mathew 2-5, “He (Jesus) called a little child to him (which, in and of itself is profound because in this day and age, women and children were not valued as highly as men… so for Jesus to use a child as the subject of His message, it was controversial and challenging to the established law) and placed the child among them. And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
Matthew 18:2-5 NIV
So… Jesus had JUST stressed the importance of children and where to place our children as the example of humility that God wants from us. He had JUST SAID IT.
Then back to Chapter 19. Picking back up one verse before the one I shared earlier. Verse 13 - “Then people brought little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them and pray for them. But the disciples rebuked them.”
Matthew 19:13 NIV
Wait… they rebuked them? They said “kids get outta here. We’re doing grown folks things. We’re talking policy and strategy and mental health and thoughts and prayers and we’re building a children’s ministry so that we can attract more parents because parents tithe… we’re debating about YOU as if you are insignificant and that we know it all. We yell over each other because we are older and wiser and we MUST get OUR point across. Step aside children. Grown folks are talking.”
“Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.””
Matthew 19:14 NIV
We like the scripture “Train up a child in the way he should go: And when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6 KJV That one seems to make sense… I’m the adult, I teach the kid. But if we are not protecting our kids at all costs, it’s blatantly obvious that we are not cherishing them the way God has intended for us to.
I realized two things this week.
we are so so far from making our children the priority that they deserve to be… and it’s heartbreaking
before anything, each of us on every side need to reevaluate our motivation, our empathy and our love for each other.
It’s no wonder our country is in such chaos, calamity and disconnection. We exist in the hubris that protecting our kids at all cost is a debatable topic.
May I encourage you to begin to lead with more empathy? Do you think our kids are worth it enough for you to hear something you might not agree with and then, for the babies, consider how we can begin to dissolve our differences into a solution? If you “just can’t” or you “just aren’t” willing to listen… more of our babies will die. Take a minute and look at each face in the picture of the victims from Uvalde. Imagine ONE of them is the face of your kid or your sibling or your cousin or your friend.
You may now return to your regularly scheduled programming.
Many of the stories about the individual victims of Tuesday’s tragedy were found here in this ABC News Article
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