October 26, 2009

I am sure most of you have heard by now of the incident that occurred on the Arizona State University Campus yesterday. If you did not I will briefly explain it to you or you can look up the story here http://www.statepress.com/node/8727 . Yesterday a graduate student committed suicide in his professors office while they were talking. He just pulled out a gun in the middle of their conversation and shot himself. Wow. I am almost speechless. But as this happened I feel the need to write out my feelings, so this is it. Feel free to read on or not. While I am saddened by this event and my thoughts go out to his family and friends, I have mixed feelings of sadness and thankfulness, I am also a little scared. I am of course, sad for the family of this student, who now has to figure out how to live life without their loved one. I too had a family member commit suicide and let me tell you it is very hard on the loved ones left behind. So I pray that his family is comforted in this time of need. Next, I am thankful that his intent was only to kill himself, and not to go on a shooting spree and kill other innocent lives. You hear about school shooting, more often then most of us would like, but we still think, oh that would never happen at my school. I thought that too, until this event that brought the story a little to close to home. Luckily, I was not on campus yesterday, but what if this man had decided to kill many others before he ended his own life? What if friends of mine that were on campus yesterday were involved in more than just one man's suicide? I am thankful that this man only took one life, his own, and did not kill other innocent lives. And lastly, this event instilled more of a fear in me. This man came onto campus with a gun, and nobody knew. Nobody. That is so scary to me. As I got in the elevator today and there was one other student in there with me, I could not help but think, what if he has a gun too. What if he is going to shoot? I know that situations can happen anywhere and that you can be injured doing almost anything. But it is scary to think that people around me could have weapons without anyone knowing. I am sure going to be more cautious and careful, doing what I can, but if the weapon is concealed, I guess there is not much I can do besides put my faith in Christ and hope that if it is my time to go I am ready. I hope I am ready.