“Faith is the strength by which a shattered world shall emerge into the light.” – Helen Keller

 We in the United States are still reeling in the wake of the senseless shooting spree by a Connecticut gunman who killed his mother, then killed 20 children and six adults at a school before killing himself last Friday. The tragedy was so horrible that many of us still cannot fully comprehend it. We think about the innocent children ages 6 and 7 who were killed along with the adults and we ask “Why?!”

My initial thought was to wait a few days and write a blog post about something else rather than deal with this horrific incident. But if I want to be a Woman Making Strides, I must be proactive and address matters that I feel strongly about. The lives that were lost mattered.

The tragedy makes me see that the mission of Women Making Strides is all the more important.

• We need to appreciate the lives we have been given.
• We each need to take care of our body, mind, and spirit.
• We need to accept challenges.
• We need to have faith and use our talents to better the world.

Imagine if the perpetrator of the crime had taken care of his mind and spirit by praying every day and saying positive affirmations. Imagine if he had appreciated his life and respected the lives of others. Imagine if whatever made him do this was something that he decided he could deal with instead of thinking, “My life is so bad. I’m going to lash out and kill!” Imagine if he had thought, “I am going to use my talents to better the world.” Imagine if he had chosen to spread light rather than darkness.

This is of course a simplistic way of looking at the tragedy. It may appear that I am looking at the crime in hindsight and saying, “I have the solution to prevent such tragedies.” No, I don’t have the solution. I cannot tell you what was in the shooter’s mind when he killed his mother, when he killed the children and adults at the school, or when he killed himself. Maybe he was so mentally ill that he could not make better decisions. But I think a person who truly lives like a Woman Making Strides is not likely to commit such a destructive act.

We cannot change anyone but ourselves, and we cannot undo what happened in Connecticut. However, we can choose how we live our lives. We can choose to spread light or we can choose to spread darkness.

We are not shooting anybody, but we do spread darkness sometimes. Maybe we get irritable and snap at people. Maybe we have road rage. Maybe we feel sorry for ourselves. We are human and we make mistakes.

We are the leaders in our own lives, so let’s try to shine light and dispel the darkness in the world. We are not perfect but we can apologize to people we have offended. We can smile at the next person we see. We can think about what we are grateful for today. We can pray and ask God to help us. We can create, rather than destroy.

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We can be grateful for our lives and respectful of the lives of others. We can take care of our body, mind, and spirit so our bad feelings don’t spiral out of control. We can believe we have something to offer the world and we can use our talents. We can decide to be proactive and we can have faith.

If we do all these things, we will be role models for others and we will be spreading light instead of darkness. Let us honor the children and the adults who lost their lives in the Connecticut massacre by living our lives as best we can.

Romans 13:12b says, “Let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light.” What is one thing you can do today to spread light instead of darkness?

* Note: I have been told that WordPress is putting an inappropriate ad on this post. I will try to have it removed. Meanwhile, please ignore it for now. Thank you.