Speechless to a Degree

It's hard to find the right words to describe the tradegy at Sandy Hook Elementary...however, being a teacher and a parent there are no words, expect that I hope I will never have to be able to imagine what this school and community has lived through in the past 48-72 hours.   I did not learn of the events that took place on Friday until that afternoon when I was on my way home from school.  It was an instant sick feeling in the pit of my stomach and watching the news, the sick feeling just grew and grew.  I watched Friday night and I watched Saturday, until the information started to repeat itself and I had to turn it off.  I couldn't bare to watch or listen to it any more.  When I decided to be a teacher there were many things that I knew I would have to encounter and there are many things that you knew you would have to protect your students from; like keeping them from getting hurt on the playground or help soothe hurt feelings, but never, this, never this was even a thought in my head.  However, over the years this thought of this could  happen at any time and any day has crept into my head.  You pray for your students that they will learn, be successful, and have protection on their way to school and going home, but you don't think to pray that they will be safe during the school day from someone coming in the school to harm them.  School is suppose to be a SAFE place.  For so many students, home isn't the best place to be, but they feel safe at school.  Now that, that has been taken away, where are these children suppose to feel safe?  I am sure that my students will bring up at some point tomorrow the events that happened on Friday because it is a very real thing that can happen anywhere.  It's scary to think that when you drop your child off at school one morning and watch them go into the building that it could be the last time you see your child alive.  Or that you tell your family good-bye and you are on your way to work at school and have no idea that you won't be going home the same way you got to school.  This is just a horrible reminder to us all to live each day and each moment to our last, because in this crazy world we live in we are not promised the next breath.  Friday night, Kevin and I sat on the couch with Madalyn in between us snuggled together watching "Tinkerbell: The Great Fairy Rescue" and was so thankful to be there with them but I couldn't help thinking of how many parents wouldn't be able to do that with their child.  Or those adults that were killed trying to save the children, that their families were hurting as well.  This school and community is in my prayers as I am sure you have been praying for them as well.  I pray that tomorrow being a school day, will bring hope and comfort to Newtown, CT and that for the rest of us we will trust in God to keep us safe.