What to do with a near tragedy

Well, by now many of you have probably heard what happened in Normal this past weekend, but for my international readers, a brief recap. A young man brought a gun to NCHS last Friday and took over his classroom firing a few shots into the ceiling. He was apprehended by the teacher and when the school was locked down, the students made their way through rain and mud to our church building where our staf and some Eastview members showed incredible love to the staff, faculty and students during this emotionally draining and scary time. By God's grace no students were hurt and everyone got home safe...but it was a wake up call! What to do as a Christian when this stuff happens? Well, this is where I've landed and some thoughts on what God seems to be saying to me: 1. Life is fragile, short, unpredictable and not promised...so how does that affect my love, my witness, and my walk with Jesus today? If I knew today was it...what's different? 2. God is generous. The only thing I know to do when something good happens on a grand scale is to think how God must have covered that school and that classroom with his grace because of the prayers of the hundreds of parents who pray for their kids all the time. 3. The church is beautiful. When stuff that absolutely shakes the world goes down, the church is seen as this place of safety and reassurance (I love that the church was referred to in the news as the "reunification" place). And you know how the church does it? By being itself. God designed the church for times such as this...absolutely beautiful. 4. God works in mysterious ways. God will use this event to bring some people to His Son and will also light a fire under some of us who are just too complacent in our walk. God has already turned this very crazy scary event to change hundreds of lives! 5. The preached word always makes a difference. There was talk of doing some different things in our service yesterday but my spiritual instinct was to simply do what we do. Assure people of God's word for our lives and praise him in song. What have you done with this experience?