I am a mother. I will be honest that in this season of my life, it often seems that is all I am, but that’s okay with me, because I know I am a better person for it. I am grateful for the three beautiful daughters who have made me a mother. They have taught me extraordinary lessons. Lessons that I don’t think I could have learned otherwise.

They have taught me what it really means to deny myself. I thought I knew what self denial was, but honestly my selflessness was limited in scope. Then a child came into my life – surprise! They don’t wave goodbye at night and go home. You are their home. They are reliant upon you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Even moments alone are often invested in thinking of them, their needs, how to serve them and love them.

They have taught me to laugh and enjoy life.  I have always enjoyed life, but I have a tendency to be a bit melancholy and serious and more focused on discipline and productivity than is good for me. Then these little wonders came, one by one, mussing up my little orderly space and creating beautiful chaos with strewn toys and joyful noises.

They have revealed my own selfishness and vanity, thus bringing me to my knees and to Christ’s Cross. How often do I long for my own way, my own rights, my own – anything??! How contrary I am to Christ when I am self-centered! Their very existence within my womb caused my shape to change, grow, swell, three times over, revealing my own pride and vanity over my body image – again, driving me to the Cross for the only cure for my worldliness.

And perhaps most importantly, they have connected me to humanity in a way I never was before. I have had the honor of holding the lost, hurting, dying children in this world. The poor, orphaned, victims of violence and oppression and evil. But never before did my heart break for these atrocities as it has since I became a mom.

Because in becoming a mom, I became in a new way a citizen of humanity. I know the way it feels to have your baby kick inside of you and long for their appearing. I know how it feels to think something may be wrong with them and worry about them every night. I know how it feels to bear them, hold them in my arms for the first times, and tremble with joy and complete fear over the hallowed responsibility of raising a living human being in the days we are living in.

Because I am a mom, I see other children in a new way and with new love and admiration. I also see people in general differently than before I had children. They are all, in fact, creations of God and made in His image. They are all, in fact, someone’s child. My friend Caroline Jarboe once explained it to me as I expressed these sentiments with a wonderful illustration – she said someone told her once that when you become a mother you “decide forever to have your heart go walking outside of your body.” I couldn’t agree more.

So when I heard the news of this shooting yesterday at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, my heart felt like it leaped outside of my chest. Then I heard the details. Little babes – right around Grace’s age. Many of them. Bright faces, fresh faces, new faces, faces full of innocence and excitement for their day, for their year, for their life. Little lunch boxes packed with notes from their mommies and daddies, eagerly anticipating the Christmas holidays and perhaps sharing excitedly with one another what their plans might be. And then, in an instant, all of that fresh life, joy, hope…snuffed out. In an instant.

It is enough to make even the calmest, most temperate person angry. Angry with that shooter. Angry with the world. Angry with the evil in it. And then – sad. Sad for the children first, then for the parents left to cope with unimaginable grief that the Virgin Mary knew well. Don’t we easily forget that she was a mother, too? And that Simeon prophesied to her when Jesus was just a babe that “a sword will pierce your own soul“? And that she was there when he died, her heart out walking around outside of her chest, suffering and in one way dying right along with him.

How did she go on after that? We know that, in fact, she did. She kept breathing and living and not just half-heartedly, but spreading the good news that her son’s life came to proclaim. His death would not be in vain.

Satan is still alive and active in his influence in our world, as Scripture calls him “the ruler of this world” in John 12:21, which we would do well to soberly remember – but it doesn’t end there. He doesn’t have the final word. Because of what Christ did at the Cross. Death is swallowed up in Victory. As believers in Christ, we can comfort each other that a day is coming when “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).

But what about now? What about today? How can we comfort those who mourn, encourage our children and ourselves in the midst of such tragedy that God is alive and well in the world today?

The answer is quite simple – God is alive and well, shining brightly through His Church – His people – You and I, if we proclaim Christ as Savior and as the Son of God. And we are admonished “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.” – Romans 12:21.

Evil will continue in this world until Christ returns. But “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”- John 1:5.

I challenge you, my friend, what will you do in the face of so much evil, so much horror, so much pain?

Will you stand in shock and awe, horrified and grief stricken, holding your family and children much tighter today? I hope so. But I also hope that it doesn’t end there.

I hope that you and I both will choose to sow seeds of hope, life, peace, righteousness, joy, and every other fruit of the Spirit, in our world. Let us blast the light of Christ into this world in every way we can, with all the strength and grace we have been given, with all the love that Christ has put in our hearts. Let us tend to the hurt, broken, angry, bitter people of this world, spreading the good news of the Gospel with those whom the world has deemed “forsaken” and love them with the same love that Christ has shown us. Let us expel the darkness with light, loose the chains of those bound in bitterness and anger – and start first by dealing with the evil in our own hearts. Let us pour truth and wisdom and light and love into our children and the children around us to prove that this generation will not be devoured by evil but flourishing in love.

And above all these things, let us hold fast to hope, for our hope will not end in disappointment but in redemption, victory, and the Love that will triumph over all.