Aurora, Colorado

I grew up in Aurora, Colorado, about a mile and a half from the now infamous Century 16 Theater.  I remember the Aurora Mall, home to the theater, the area where I usually parked, the door where I usually entered, the stores where I usually shopped.  My hometown, Aurora, Colorado, once an obscure suburb of the city of Denver, now stands in the national news as the place of the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.  When I first heard the news and saw video footage, I was stunned.  How could this horrible shooting have taken place in my city, a city ranked among the ten safest cities just two years ago?

Living now hundreds of miles away from Aurora, people question me.  “Aren’t you glad your husband saved you from that horrible place?”  “What is wrong with the people from Colorado?”  “There should be gun controls!”  My first instinct is to defend Aurora and its people.  My thoughts stray to other recent shootings.  I contemplate the shooter’s original home.  I wonder who is really responsible for this abhorrent act.  And then I am reminded that this world is filled with evil.  Men have turned their hearts and minds away from the Creator of the universe and as a result creation has been subjected to ruin, futility and corruption.

But we are not without hope.  Jesus told His disciples, “These things I have spoken to you, that in Me you may have peace.  In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”  The evil and tribulation of this world cause us to look eagerly for the hope of His return, for redemption, for our adoption as sons.  That will be a glorious day!

And while we wait for that day, we have the hope and knowledge that “all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.  For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”  These are hard words, especially for someone who lost a loved one in the shooting and yet they are true words, words in which we can place our hope.  We can also trust that “in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.”

The stories of those in the theater that early morning of July 20 trickle out.  They renew our faith and hope.  Four men were killed as they shielded their girlfriends.  A thirteen year-old girl tried to resuscitate a six year-old victim.  A young woman stayed with her friend, applying pressure to a gunshot wound in her friend’s neck.  When the shooting stopped, she carried her friend to an ambulance across the parking lot.  Another young woman, hit four times, once in the head, was saved and protected from brain damage by an unknown birth defect.  A tiny vein of fluid extended through her skull and miraculously the bullet traveled through that vein.  Her mother stated, “I believe she was not only protected by God, but that she was actually prepared for it.”    

More stories of heroism will emerge in the coming days.  And let us not forget the police officers who responded quickly and decisively.  Hope remains.  God’s love abides.  As one victim writes, “God is always good.  Man is not.  Don’t get the two confused.  We will continue to praise and worship our mighty God, anticipating that He will bring beauty from ashes, as only He can do.”