Surviving A Shooter, Or Any Other Hell

On February 1, 2022, an active shooter terrorized the campus of Bridgewater College. The college was on lockdown for several hours as authorities searched for the perpetrator after he brutally murdered a campus police officer and a campus safety officer. 

The episode was horrifying, knocking many off-balance, toddling toward despair. How, in a place of deep connection and family, did something so unconnected and "un-family-like" occur, inflicted by a former student, no less? How did such a horrific act of violence happen at a college founded by a historic/living peace church (e.g., Church of the Brethren), so committed to nonviolence? 

There are no definitive answers. The best we can muster is a remembrance of Jesus' words in John 16:33: "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33 NIV). For some reason, I believe (naively) that some persons (like me) and places (like where I'm a trustee) are the exceptions. But as the Bridgewater tragedy reminds us, there are no exceptions: at some point, all will experience the worst of life. 

Given such reality, how do we survive?  

Jesus' next thought in John 16:33 tells us: "But take heart! I have overcome the world" (John 16:33 NIV). Translated: through the resources of God in Christ (Philippians 4:16; 2 Corinthians 4:14), we have a way and means to navigate even the unthinkable ... the incomprehensible ... the worst of the worst ... even "hell on earth."  

But here's the rub: it's a process. It's not instantaneous--it takes time. Sometimes, a lot of time.  

And the process doesn't always feel "spiritual." Sometimes it is very raw, earthy, doubtful--very, very honest. But the Creator understands, encouraging us to be "honest to God," even with our anger and most unvarnished thoughts.

Out of my valleys and hell have come a number of "honest to God" survival skills, which I pray are helpful to you as well. 

Survival Skill #1 - Don't "Sweeten" the Reality Before You

For the most part, Christians are too nice--sweetening, sugar-coating the stabbing reality of life. Sure, prolonged cynicism, anger, sarcasm, are not healthy or therapeutic. But neither is unreal, plastic-smile, overly religious expression.

So, face it: tragedy and crisis are horrific and crippling, stopping life still. Translated: everyone and everything whizzes by as "normal" during a life crisis, but you and your family--you and your alma mater--are far from "normal," suspended in a bubble of relentless pain.  

But some Christ-followers deny such reality. I remember the reaction of a dad to the sudden death of his daughter. One minute his daughter was immersed in a beautiful family event; the next minute, as she walked outside to the parking lot, a car spun out of control in her direction, killing her instantly. As I went with the dad to the hospital morgue, I expected a normal human reaction: shock, grief, and tears. Not so. What I encountered was a stoic response, reflecting no sorrow--only a repetition of the conviction that his daughter's sudden death was the Will of God. 

God's instrumentality, or lack of instrumentality, is not my focus at this juncture; that's a topic for another blog. What I'm identifying is the failure on the part of the dad to articulate reality.

We need to articulate reality, for renewed faith rises from the raw confession of the tough stuff, including the suffering of life. The Biblical character Job shows the way:

"What’s the point of life when it doesn’t make sense, when God blocks all the roads to meaning? Instead of bread I get groans for my supper, then leave the table and vomit my anguish. The worst of my fears has come true, what I’ve dreaded most has happened. My repose is shattered, my peace destroyed. No rest for me, ever—death has invaded life.” (Job 3:23-26 The Message)

We forget that hellish words, not just happy words, are in Scripture. And God teaches: such horrific admission is a necessary part of the journey of faith.

Survival Skill #2 - Allow Yourself To Ask the Tough Questions of Faith

Sure, there are people like the dad I just named, who move from intense tragedy to renewed faith instantaneously.

But most struggle with God in tragedy. To put it bluntly, using the familiar mantra: how can a good God allow senseless suffering?  

As a trustee of Bridgewater College, I'll just confess: I blurted those words as I entered into the suffering of administrators, staff, faculty, and students at an institution close to my heart. I mean, even as I write these words, I can still feel the "gut punch" when I first got the news, and subsequently as I listened to real-time news coverage as the tragedy unfolded. It's hard to reconcile those images with the image of a loving God.

Such struggle is what's historically known as theodicy. "Gallons of ink have been spilled" trying to address the topic (e.g., why a good God allows bad things) but the response of Elizabeth (no last name provided) in an article in The Atlantic is probably the wisest:  

"...there aren't really any easy answers, are there? Perhaps that's as it should be. Faced with the tearing crimson and black of pain and grief and evil, a tidy formula seems somehow profane. I'm a Christian...and so the goodness of God in the light of pain and injustice is a tension that I am regularly confronted with. And it hurts ... [But] there, in the midst of it all is Jesus. He's walking ... into the middle of the maelstrom of all our gigantic and garden variety meanness. As N.T. Wright says, 'Jesus doesn't explain why there is suffering, illness, and death in the world ... [Rather]  He allows evil to do its worst to him. He exhausts it, drains its power, and emerges with new life' ... He's the God who suffers with us. And I love Him for it." (Chris Bodenner, "Why Would A Loving, All Powerful God Allow Suffering." The Atlantic, March 31, 2010)   

The new life emerging with Jesus out of suffering varies. But it does emerge. David Brooks suggests this in his book The Second Mountain.   

"[T]here's nothing intrinsically noble about suffering ... But sometimes, when suffering can be connected to a larger narrative of change and redemption, we can suffer our way to wisdom ... Climbing out of the valley is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don't come out healed; they come out different. The poet Ted Hughes observed that the things that are the worst to undergo are often the best to remember, because at those low moments the protective shells are taken off, humility is achieved." (David Brooks, The Second Mountain, pp. 36-37)

Part of humility-achieved is a keen awareness that I can't make it through suffering without others, starting with the "other"--God. Thus, prayer takes on increased urgency, as prayer connects us not only with God but all those praying, creating a power-full synergy.  

And then, over time (it always takes time!), a paradoxical reality breaks in: disappointment with God migrates to dependency on God and others.   

Survival Skill #3 - Don't Expect Total Relief, But "Just Enough" Relief: Manna for the Moment

Support in suffering does materialize. But, again, it's over time (it always takes time!).

Frankly, in my sojourn in suffering, I want everything to be better right away--now! But looking back on hellish times, if I'm honest, I did receive just enough provision, manna, for each day. 

Remember manna? Why, it was the nourishment God gave the Israelites in the wilderness of their confusion and suffering. But it didn't arrive in one dramatic delivery. Rather, God delivered just enough for each day.

"Then the Lord said to Moses, 'I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day … I have heard the grumbling of the Israelites. Tell them, ‘At twilight you will eat meat, and in the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God’” (Exodus 16:4, 12 emphasis added).

Did you catch both God's attentiveness and God's timing? God hears our grumbling, our disappointment with Him, for sure. And God is responsive. But here's the pinch-point: it's according to God's preferred provision and God's preferred timing.

Looking back on suffering seasons, I now realize this reality. But boy, in the midst of the "worst of the worst," I honestly thought a breakthrough would never occur.

But it always does; God always moves life forward, beyond pain, to some redemptive destination. But as David Brooks pointed out earlier: "Climbing out of the valley is not like recovering from a disease. Many people don't come out healed; they come out different."  But that difference advances life in life-enhancing ways.   For me, the Psalmist nails it.  

"Where shall...I flee from your presence [O, God]? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol [Hell], you are there! ... If I say, 'Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night,' even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you." (Psalm 139:7-12 ESV, emphasis added)

And so, where is it night for you; where do tragedy and pain seem forever? The psalmist's heart-cry is true: in God's good time, even the darkness is as light to our Creator.

Survival Tip # 4 - Keep Looking for the Lessons and the Gain

Though I do not believe it is God's Will for suffering to occur,  I do believe God allows suffering for a Divine purpose, largely beyond my/our understanding.  But I am getting some clues.  

Among other purposes/lessons/gains, I now have a deeper connection with persons as a result of my suffering times. I can't quite articulate it, but I have a bond with folks now that's different, because we now have the common denominator of pain. The Apostle Paul would not be surprised.  

"Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ ... who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ's sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too." (2 Corinthians 1:3-5 ESV, emphasis added)

I also have a deeper bond with God, who, in Christ, is intimately identified with suffering as the suffering servant.  

"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows ... he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities ... with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray ... and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." (Isaiah 53:4-6 ESV)

And so we have in God--in Christ--One who empathizes with our suffering, for He also has suffered.  Rather than running away from God when the worst occurs, ultimately, paradoxically, we run toward God, for God understands pain.

In 1927, one of Scotland's greatest preachers, Arthur John Gossip, unexpectedly, tragically, lost his beloved wife. Persons wondered what Gossip would do with such unspeakable tragedy, questioning if he would ever mount the pulpit again. But return to the pulpit Gossip did, reflecting honestly but faithfully:   

“I do not understand this life of ours. But still less can I comprehend how people in trouble and loss and bereavement can fling away peevishly from the Christian faith. In God’s name, fling to what? Have we not lost enough without losing that too?” 

Sobering words, reminding us that there's much of life that doesn't make sense, including the recent active shooter incident at Bridgewater College. 

But God is present even in horrific circumstance, identifying with our suffering as One who has suffered as well.

The process of fully appropriating such truth is a journey. And it normally doesn't happen quickly. 

But, in God's good time, life does move forward, advancing us even through the valleys of shadow and suffering.   

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Portions of this posting are adapted from an earlier blog: "How To Survive The 10 Worst Days Of Your Life."