“A voice was heard in Ramah"

“A voice was heard in Ramah, weeping and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.” Matthew 2:18

A Day for Hatred
...Days like today give us no choice but to hate. They leave us only with a choice of where that hatred will land: Will we hate God, or will we hate sin?

I choose to hate sin. On days like today I will reflect again on the ravaging effects of rebellion against God, multiplied across millennia, manifested in a freshly printed headline. The more shocking the headline, the more I must come to grips with my minimized reckoning of the severity of sin. With Nehemiah I will cry out, "I and my fathers have sinned," freshly grieved over the sins of others---yes---but freshly grieved over my own sin as well. I have not pulled a trigger, but I have harmed my share of victims. The killer lies dead, but I live on to harm again. On days like today I will renew my resolve not to participate in tearing down what God pronounced good at the dawn of human existence. I cannot stop a murderer, but by the grace of God I can stop sinning against those he has given into my care... image

The Anchoress: Newtown and the God who Knows
...People will ask, “where was God, in all of this.” God was in the teachers who pulled little kids into classrooms and went into lockdown, and in the first responders who got survivors to safety and reunited with their parents (pray for the first responders, too; they suffer — often in silence — after they have made safe). God was right beside everyone, and is with them in grief. Because he is the God Who Knows all we feel and experience.

And that is not much help today. There is no new wisdom. There is only what we have always known...

Albert Mohler: Addressing the Connecticut tragedy. How should Christians think, pray?
Podcast

The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

-Psalm 34:17-18