If there's anything consistent I've learned in the past 7 months, it's been that there's no such thing as coincidence. And today, my world has been rocked.
For those of you who don't know, I've had one of the most trying years of my life this year. I had major family issues I had to face the day after I came home from Passion (I wrote a brief blog about it in January... the last blog I wrote) and am still dealing with it (but I'm seeing many fruits from it). My car has been having issues left and right, I've been jobless since February (partly by choice and partly because everything that's been happening hasn't given me the freedom to have a job), I've had to learn the hard way how to deal with loneliness, idleness, and discontent. My grandfather and his wife were put in the hospital the same week for different issues, and my grandfather died just 4 weeks later. That was the first death in my family that I have ever experienced. My parent's house has sold, and they are moving back to Houston. And for the first time in my life, I don't want to go back. So here I am, not knowing where I'll be after August 6th: Houston? or Charlotte? It's been a struggle for a couple of weeks, but I finally have peace knowing that wherever I end up is where God wants me to be. Whatever will happen, it was God's perfect timing, and I know it will strengthen my faith more than ever.
Very rarely do I get the urge to write. I don't keep a journal, and if you look over past blog posts, I probably have 10 posts in the past year. I'm terrible at writing, I don't have the patience to write by hand, and when I turn on my laptop, I get distracted by other things and forget to open a blank document and write. So here I am, world rocked, and I can't get the words typed out fast enough.
Last night was the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises. I went with a couple of my friends, enjoyed the movie, and had a blast. And even though I had a good time, I did leave with feelings of anger, annoyance and just being downright ungrateful. I went home talking to a friend for about an hour talking about these feelings, and fell asleep. I awoke to facebook posts, twitter updates and the entire Internet talking about Colorado shootings. When I read what happened, my heart sank. When I found out more details I thought "I can't say I'm not surprised. You watch a movie where the villains are considered cool, you're going to have people that are curious to know what it feels like." I'm not blaming anyone for what happened. The responsibility falls solely on the man who decided to take away people's lives out of curiosity/anger/hurt or whatever reason he decided to do this.
As soon as I wrote the previous paragraph, I'm reminded of a girl that went to the same high school I attended in Texas before I moved to North Carolina my 12th grade year. I remember a couple years ago MySpace blowing up with everyone from my hometown saying: "If anyone knows where Ashton Glover is, please call her parents" "Ashton, if you're reading this, please come home" Soon, the messages changed to "RIP Ashton Glover". I wasn't close to the girl. We had mutual friends, and I had the pleasure to meet her a couple of times. We recognized each other and would say "hi" to each other occasionally when we passed each other in the halls of our high school. But we never hung out, and I never knew anything personal about her. When I found out what happened to her, I was sick to my stomach for months. Two of her friends (one of them I had known since 7th grade and I always got along with) picked her up from a coffee shop to hang out. They went out into an open field, and while her back was turned, one of said "friends" shot her. After she died, they buried her in a shallow grave in said field, left the scene, went to their separate homes to sleep, then fled to Canada the next day. All I could think was "That could have been anybody. That could have been me." You can never say of someone: "So-and-so would never do that! They're not capable of hurting anyone!" Oh, and the reason for shooting her? The guy who I've known since 7th grade said it was "morbid curiosity". He wanted to know what death looked like.
"The heart is deceitful above all things,
and desperately sick;
who can understand it?" -Jeremiah 17:9
Throughout the course of today, I have come across two blogs that have been re-posted all over Twitter. Only 2. I normally don't read blogs or articles, but these peaked my interest. I'll post both so if you would like to read them for yourself, you can. A little back story on the first one, Jessica Redfield was at the shooting last night and was killed. This blog was found shortly after and is all over the Internet. Turns out, she was indirectly part of a shooting a month and a half earlier. The second blog is the updates of a man who's sister died last night in the shootings. His sister wrote the first blog. (I originally thought they were two different girls, but I just learned it's the same girl).
http://jessicaredfield.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/late-night-thoughts-on-the-eaton-center-shooting/
http://www.jordanghawi.com/denver-theatre-shooting-jessica-ghawi/
This brother and sister both originate from Texas. I looked at the brother's Twitter and found out he lives in the same town my grandparents live in. What are the chances that someone would live in the small, country town my grandparents live in? And have a sister named Jessica who died at the midnight premiere showing last night? Even though I wasn't in Colorado, I can't help but feel ties to these people. I don't frequent midnight premieres often. And I believe nothing is coincidental. Everyone in that theater was there for a reason. I don't know the reason(s), and I'm not going to pretend I know God's thoughts.
After reading Jessica's one out of two blog posts, I decided to look at her Twitter account. What did she like? Was she funny? Why was she living in Colorado? Was she married? After the shootings, how did it change her life? Was she a Christian? I found out she loves sports, specifically hockey, and I was immediately reminded of my 2 best friends that were Sports Management majors, and one of them was my college roommate. She adores hockey. This girl did have a sense of humor! There were some things that she tweeted that I could see myself tweeting as well. She didn't seem to be married, but I was really looking for tweets that were specifically about the shootings. She did tweet about going to the midnight premiere, but that was it. You didn't get her update on what she thought about the movie. And from the looks of it, she tweeted quite regularly. I finally got to some tweets on the day of the shootings. June 2nd, 2012. She was standing outside of the mall with a large crowd of onlookers trying to figure out what was going on and the fate of the victims. She talked about how upset she was, and how she was going to be sick, and updating the amount of people carried out on stretchers, and how she overheard a police officer say that there was one fatality. But one tweet shook me to my core: "A man dressed as Batman is charging tourists to take pictures outside the Eaton Center yelling "MY PARENTS ARE DEAD!" Very tacky & heartless”
How often do you see someone dressed up as a super hero? There were no Batman movies showing at this time, and Comic Con 2012 hadn't happened yet. And yes, this was happening the exact same time people were being carried out on stretchers. And how do you die a month and a half later at a midnight premiere of a movie about the same character? You can't tell me this is coincidence. It can't be.
Out of all of these tweets, and in her blog posts, I never once saw anything about God. Did she realize that this feeling that saved her wasn't a feeling at all? It was God. He moved her from that spot and changed her appetite at that time so she wouldn't be killed in that moment. And He wanted her to be at the mall, at that time so she could witness it all, and see that nothing in her life was under control.
I'm seeing too many correlations, and I don't have enough understanding. I'm confused beyond belief, and I can't help but pray and ask for insight. And I had to write this out. I had to. I couldn't keep this in my head. I have to look back on this someday and remember the sickening feeling I've had all day. I have to refer back to this when the Holy Spirit reveals to me why I've read these blogs, and why I've made connections.
I refuse to let go of this feeling. The feeling that nothing is coincidental, and that everything I've read and heard so far are things that God wants me to read and hear.
