Columbine

This coming Monday marks the 10 year mark for the Columbine shooting. I was reading about a member of the church who was shot three times. He was sitting outside on the grass with some buddies eating lunch when they heard some gun shots. They all thought it was some senior prank....that is until this young kid got shot himself. He was shot in the leg and then decided to get up and run. He was almost behind some type of shed when he got shot in the arm. The third shot landed in his neck.

I can't even imagine. I can't imagine the fear that went through those young kids' minds while all this was happening. Or how about the parents when they found out that there were shootings happening at the school that their kids attend? It almost brings me to tears as I sit here and think about it.

What made me blog about this in the first place is because I LOVED what this young man said. These are his exact words.

“If there is one thing I would like to share with others from my experience, it is that we cannot emerge from the trials we have been given unchanged. We will either let them beat us, or we will use them to become stronger,” Johnson reflected. “I was fortunate to have an outlook that helped me focus on what I needed to do to get through the hardship. . . . As a result, I was blessed to not only heal quickly, but to become a better person for it. I believe that these responses to challenges in our lives will always yield similar results. As long as we approach trials with the question, ‘What does God want me to learn from this?’ it will be easier to bear them, and we will be more likely to gain from them.”

What a great attitude to have. I love being reminded of things like this. No matter what comes our way or what trials we face we can decide to make the most of it and learn from it. Not always an easy thing but definately something we can do.