In the fall of 2006, our community had to deal with the grief over the West Nickel Mines School shooting, in which five little girls were killed. The horror of it was thick in the air, and it showed on everyone’s face, was heard in each conversation, and made daily headlines for weeks.
The tragedy took place a hundred miles west of our home, so it wasn’t in our school district or church community, but three of my nephews were involved. Two were students in the school that day, and one worked as a volunteer fireman for a department that was dispatched to the school. So the pain and terror of that day stung our minds and hearts.
Nothing had ever shaken our world as fiercely as this did. As much as we tried to reassure our two school-age children (and ourselves), sending them to school each morning became harder instead of easier.
Amish school boards across the state met to discuss ways to make our children safer. After one such meeting, I left disappointed that the elders weren’t doing more to protect the children and teachers in the local Amish and Mennonite schools.
I wrestled with frustration and fear. How could I help my children deal with their fear when I was struggling myself?
I remembered a window sticker I’d received about eight years earlier as a gift from Guideposts and had stuck on the glass of my front door. I went to the door and peeled off the sticker. Over the years the words had given my family and me a sense of security. Perhaps it could do the same for the children who attended our one-room schoolhouse.
Not sure how my two children, Amanda and Mark, would feel about presenting the sticker to their teacher, I told them the original story. A would-be robber was armed with a gun and prepared to use it when he entered a store and threatened the owner. Then he read the sign above the door, which said, “God is our security guard, always on duty.”
I asked if they wanted to take the sticker to school for their door. Their smiles put to rest any misgivings I had.
To this day that sticker reminds all the students in that schoolhouse who is really in control and gives them peace.
There is nothing wrong with providing some measures of protection for ourselves and our loved ones. But true peace can only be found by realizing that our only real shelter is God. We know the “thief” comes to destroy, but no matter what happens on this fallen planet, God knows how to heal the brokenhearted and how to give beauty for ashes (see John 10:10; Luke 4:18; and Isaiah 61:3).
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