When tragedy strikes
Have you ever wondered why we let things go until something bad happens… then it has to be repaired. I’ve noticed this worse with men. When men are sick or have some kind of bump or soreness, we think it will go away or heal itself. Sometimes we would rather go through the pain of weeks than take the time to see a physician.
My father in law walked around with his knees so bad for over two years that he could hardly walk, much less play golf. After one night out at dinner, we had to help him to the car. He is from the old school. His favorite saying is, “It’ll get better once it stops hurtin’ ”.
Now that I am getting older I have plenty of aches and pains that continue and seem to be getting worse as I continue to lift weights to try and stay in some type of shape. I guess after 35 years of weight training and 15 years of racing motocross, it has taken its toll.
Two weeks ago I noticed something on the bridge of my nose. I have had treatment on that area of my nose a few times for pre-cancer. Basically, I have not taken care of my skin while in the sun. While looking at that area, I noticed there seemed to be an indentation in that area. I thought, “Wow, this is what I have to look forward to as I age…this sucks!” Unfortunately, as we age, things change. Body parts expand, hair grows where it never did before and falls out where at one time, may have been our trade mark!
This morning while I was reading, I noticed my reading glasses were sitting comfortably in those dents in my nose. Last year the little rubber pads wore off of them and I didn’t want to replace them because I thought, “hey, they still work”, and besides I am kind of a miser when it comes to that kind of stuff. So I texted my wife and let her in on my discovery. She texted me back, “dork…go buy some new ones!”
While I thought about it, something else really hit me. The tragedy we saw this past week. It happened twice within a few weeks in Oregon, where one of my best friends is the pastor of the church that put together a special service just for the people at the mall. Then I thought about Connecticut, and all of those little ones that will miss Christmas with their families and families that will be forever changed because of the acts of a few obviously confused boys with evil in their hearts.
I have looked at the faces of those little ones and the teacher who hid them in the closet. It reminded me of the Columbine tragedy and remembering some of the words and face of Rachel Scott. I remember going to a function with our youth group just a few months after the scene in Columbine and listening to her father Darrell Scott give the story of how it all unfolded. It has brought back many memories of what we have seen in the last decade of what boys, kids, people are capable of when we don’t see what really is going on in the hearts and minds of humanity.
There are many questions going through the minds of Americans right now. Most will be unanswered and left like the folks that just do not tend to their sores and the dents I ignored on my nose. For me it’s an easy solution, just get some new glasses. But for those who lost their child, it will not come easy.
Some people want more gun control. Some people want revenge and for most of us, we are not sure what to do? There are no easy answers here, but I know there is a solution to future assurances’
. My mentor would come by the business that I ran for him once a week to visit and check up on what may need attention. He is a very detailed person and nothing ever slipped by his eyes or ears for that matter. He noticed something that needed attention that I had forgotten about and brought it to my forefront. He began by saying an old phrase that is a familiar one. He mentioned it to me by saying, “Greg, you know those cracks in the building that people walk by everyday and after a while you continue to walk by them and don’t notice them anymore, until it’s too late and you have to replace the whole wall…that’s what is going to happen unless you take care of this problem right now”.
Friends, our nations problem, is a heart problem! You may be thinking, what…what are you talking about? Our children are being influenced today by evil input. We may not really see it that way, but it is reality. A quick example is with my own son. He’s 13 and like most boys his age, he can be influenced very easy. He wanted an x-box two years ago for Christmas. The problem was, I already knew the influence it could have on his mind and worse, his heart. I bought it for him with a reluctant mind but did it anyway to please my boy.
After two years of him playing the games, I finally took it away from him, for good. During this period we would have to take it from him a few times because of his lack of respect to us as parents and the violence it created in him. We would literally argue about things every day. He didn’t want to play outside with friends, unless they came over to play x-box. He was not considering other sports which he had excelled at on a regular basis. We noticed it also caused a downward spiral in his self image.
Now, I am not saying this will happen to every kid, but it is fact that it is a huge issue nationwide. I am also not saying x-box is to blame just like I will say that guns are not the blame. We will have to change the way we bring up or kids and monitor their behaviors by instilling in them positive moral values which will not be taught in our school systems, government or even churches.
It will take us to change. Our future leaders look at us and model what we do not what we say. Life lessons are caught way more than they are taught. Today’s youth are barraged with more sex messages from media and music than we could ever imagine. The messages we send to our youth are what we are seeing acted out in real life, and it ain’t pretty. Youth see more violence than my stepfather saw in Vietnam and he came back a decorated Marine with three purple hearts.
So what can we do to change these tragedies? I refer to what Jesus would say to us, and He said this to group of religious leaders of His time, Luke 6:45 “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.”
First off, what are you storing in your heart? What we store up in our hearts, reflects what our children will store up in their hearts. If we are not teaching and modeling what our kids are to become, somebody will. Whether it is media, friends, teachers or games, that data is storing up in our kids hearts and it has to come out. Our inner beings are like a sponge. The sponge doesn’t care if it soaks up toilet water, paint, soda, alcohol or pure water, it will soak up whatever it is exposed to. When the sponge is squeezed, whatever was in the sponge comes out. Who are you when the pressures of life or any situation come around? You will be exactly like the sponge, when you’re squeezed, whatever you have been putting in your heart, the stuff will come out!
Our future leaders, our children have been exposed to what our media is allowing to be seen and it is going into the hearts of our children and they are being squeezed. So we are seeing what is coming out! This problem will not go away until we do something about our hearts and the hearts of our children. They are not cracks we can walk by daily and forget about. Our future society depends on the repairs needed today!
