In recent weeks the entire world has gone through a lot.
I pray these words leave you all well.
I don't think there has ever been a time where the world's criminal history has ever made any devastating news easier to bear. The past has never made us any less shocked or any less shaken to the very core of sadness at what is happening around us. Whether it be sieges, school shootings, or multiple homicides, mass killings, bomb threats, kidnapping, car accidents, plane crashes - it never gets easier to hear no matter what.
Every single time something terrible like this happens we are just as surprised as if it's the first time we've been through difficulty. Even though in the last ten years there have been more than 50 mass murders all over the world it never gets easier to hear about or to deal with. Finding out that a few senseless people took the lives of many others will always be hard because every single time it's never something we expect. However, this attitude on our part is not to be mistaken for naivety or ignorance, rather, it is our ability to bond together and give one another hope that events like this will never happen again, which helps us to heal and move on.
Hope is the constant that never budges no matter what lies ahead. It is what we rely on for the possibility of something better because we need to be able to believe it is going to be okay. We should never think, "If bad is bound to happen, what is the point of hope?" The point of hope is not to stop things from occurring but to remind us that bad times don't last forever - good will come again.
Yes, like I said, bad things will pop up and they will make the headlines but they will also pass and they will not make us who we are. Good is what we are made of. Good is what we need to continue to show those who are trying to hurt us. Good is what we stand for. If hell and high water come our way we will always have hope and we will always live for good.