Michael W. Smith releases
This Is Your Time
a song which was inspired by Columbine
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If this tragedy has left you feeling down and depressed and you feel like things will never get better, then you need to know you are not alone.
It is normal to go through a period of time when you will grieve for lost friends and perhaps a loss of feeling safe.
There are positive steps you can take to deal with this. Things will get better, and things are not as hopeless as they may seem. Hopelessness is a feeling of the moment and will pass.
So what can you do to get through this?
First, find someone to talk to about what you are feeling. Others are feeling the same way you do. You are a normal person under extraordinary circumstances.
Second, when you are ready, decide to make this event what motivational speaker, author, and coach Tony Robbins calls a "defining moment" in your life. Ask yourself the question "How can I turn this tragedy into something meaningful and good so that those who have died will not have died in vain?" If you ask yourself this question enough times you will get answers. The answers may be different for different people. Perhaps it is volunteering to help others, perhaps it is doing whatever you can to make sure this will not happen again. Maybe the answer for you is to help others who are having trouble coping with this. There are many other answers as well.
Third, take positive action on what you have decided will make this tragedy a "defining moment" in your life. Follow up with more action.
Life is a series of challenges...the most important thing is what each person does with those challenges.
Use the power of this event to change your life for the better. Things will get better...
Friends
Packing up the dreams God planted
In the fertile soil of you
I can't believe the hopes He's granted
Means a chapter in your life is through
We'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong
And friends are friends forever
If the Lord's the Lord of them
And a friend will not say "never"
Cause the welcome will not end
Though it's hard to let you go
In the Father's hands we know
That a lifetime's not too long to live as friends
With the faith and love God's given
Springing from the hope we know
We will pray the joy you'll live in
Is the strength that now you show
We'll keep you close as always
It won't even seem you've gone
Cause our hearts in big and small ways
Will keep the love that keeps us strong
-------
from the song "Friends"
Words and music by Michael W. Smith and Deborah D. Smith
©1982 Meadowgreen Music Co. (ASCAP)
Thought from the Pond
The tragic events at Columbine High School near Littleton, Colorado on April 20, 1999 brings society face to face with both an extremely painful event and an extremely important opportunity.
Having a daughter who attends another high school near the site of the almost unspeakable bloodshed, I was reminded of the cold hard fact that this could happen to anyone at anytime. The randomness of life plays no favorites.
When we ask ourselves how something like this could have happened, we must ask if we, as a society, are willing to accept these events as part of the price to pay for allowing certain freedoms such as the de-valuing of life, the glorification of violence in movies, the reinforcement of an attitude that death, killing, and suicide are a viable alternative as some music lyrics say, and the breakdown of values in the most important element of society, the family.
The blurring of right and wrong to shades of gray does not create a solid foundation to live life with today's pressures. Situational ethics can create situational nightmares.
Not everyone who is exposed day in and day out to the above will end up killing someone, but if it causes just 1/1000 of 1% to "go over the edge" then we have a big problem.
How does anyone make sense of this? How do we make this a defining moment where we learn from this and make things better? How does one turn this awful negative into a positive?
One way is to let this serve as a reminder that each moment in life is so very important and we should not wait to give our love and time to our children and others we love because you never know what tomorrow, or even the next moment, will bring...
What's good about all this? We now have an excellent opportunity to take action and make things better. But to do this we must first ask the right questions...
...Our continued thoughts and prayers to the families involved and everyone else that this has affected...
...Food for the Soul to all...
about the same time many of the Columbine students were born.
How remarkable that a song such as Friends was written when they were born,
only to be sung 17 years later at their memorial service...
Columbine, flower bloom, tenderly I sing to you
Columbine, roseblood red, heartbreak overflow my head
Columbine, flower bloom
Columbine there's hope for you
Columbine, friend of mine
To your gain, on the mark
With your love, love again
Comfort peace and sweet release come from you
Where, it's true, I hide myself in you
Can you still hear raging guns ending dreams of precious ones
In God's son, hope will come, his red stain will take our pain
Columbine, friend of mine
Peace will come to you in time
Columbine, friend of mine
Turn a page, to your gain
Keep your heart on the mark
Comfort us with your love
Love again
Christ of grace attend this place we look to you
Honor you
Fix you in our view
Columbine, flower bloom, tenderly I sing to you
Columbine, roseblood red, heartbreak overflows my head
Columbine, friend of mine
Peace will come to you in time
Columbine, friend of mine
by Jonathan Cohen and Stephen Cohen
1999
Columbine High School
to everyone affected by this...
and hope to everyone for tomorrow
~Peace~
