Dear World (Virginia Tech Students, Families, Staff)

23 was my age, when it happened. A victim of crime--a nightmare only reserved for movies--was something I could not conceive happening to someone who had moral standards like mine. I was the target of a man who was upset with my sister who could not give him her heart--she had just lost her husband in a car accident. He attempted to punish her by commiting a crime against me. It was front page news. I was not the only one.

I believed in God. I loved Him. I believed He would protect me. I re-dedicated my life and body to Him just before the crime happened. It did not make sense. There were voices afterwards haunting me, “How could a God do this to you?” I recognized it quickly thought the pain was pungent I knew it was the devil. My joy was God. I longed to represent Him well in the midst of all of the havoc. People spoke about me, noting, I was a horrible person and everything must have been my fault. I actually laughed because I was so ignorant about what they thought I did: I did not know what it was that they accused me of doing.

There was much that followed those days of horror that is what I am writing to you about today. Here are some of the battles I experienced.

I could not look at a person without wondering if they were another evil person that came in the form of a nice face (some of the most evil people among us we would not recognize). I had horrible fear. I wondered what was hiding behind curtains while having feelings of the presence of evil. I was tormented with it everyday. Every time it hit I would read my Bible to make sense out of it. This went on for three long years.

I also learned in the middle of my struggle it that I had to face fear head on. The Bible helped me realize that if I worked on having perfect love that I would overcome fear. What did I fear?? Pain? Loss? I do remember the day I felt like I graduated. I was confronted with an obvious evil man on the street. Fear left me. I was equipped internally with strength to trust the Lord. Compassion seemed to warm my heart. (I forgot to mention that while I waited for the detectives to arrive I went to my Bible and began to read where I stopped my daily reading . Here are the words, “…And I say to you, ‘My friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body, and after that have no more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear; fear the One who after He has killed has authority to cast into hell; yes I tell you fear Him!’” Then it goes on to express in detail the delicate love He has for us in knowing the details of our life even to the number of hairs we have on our head.)

There was also a turning point when I had to surrender to the truth that evil happens and sometimes it happens to innocent people and that it does not mean that God is not trustworthy. I had to make a choice: Did I believe God and His word or not? When I made the choice to believe even when I did not totally understand that is when my life was free from the torment that came in addition to the fear.

Yes, bad things happen. You are experiencing the knowledge of that now. We must remember that we are all vulnerable to a cruel enemy who would like to destroy us and sometimes it is innocent best of us that are the victim.

But remember this…the story is not finished. God’s nature is justice. He can not lie. He is faithful and He will not desert you. (Emotions tell us lies and yell in our ear that He does not care. Lies come from the originator of lies--the devil.) Pain and sorrow can grow into doing something good. Hope can be a legacy we keep in honor of those we hold dear.

My experience provided me an opportunity to change my heart into caring for others in a ways I had not known before. Through a series of events I became an author of a book called DEAR WORLD (http://dearworld4u.blogspot.com) and syndicated writer of this column of the same name.

Please remember you are not alone.

.