"... God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him." (1 John 4:16)

Funeral procession for Lena and Mary Liz Miller (sisters) in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

1 John 4 continues ... (verse 17) "In this way, love is made complete among us ..."

Earlier this week, I knew that I would never put a posting on this blog that was directed to the events that unfolded last Monday at the West Nickel Mines Amish School. It was just so, so awful, I thought. And now, this is the second posting in two days.

The girls who died were: Naomi Rose Ebersole, 7; Marian Fisher, 13; Mary Liz Miller, 8; her sister Lena Miller, 7; and Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12. Emma Fisher, 9 was able to slip out with the boys when the killer ordered the boys out of the schoolhouse. Emma's and Marian's sister -- name not yet released, 11, was taken off life support and is not expected to live very much longer.

Seemingly, a story of unimaginable hate.

But the stories of unselfish love keep coming in. Stories that tell of the murderer's wife being invited to the funerals (I don't know whether she attended any) and of half of the mourners at his funeral coming from the Amish community ... including members of the girls' families.

Yesterday, I was grappling with the question of just how and where and when we can see or really experience God. I was holding one of my "foster" kittens at the time and thought, "this is God right here!" I let that thought slip away until this morning at church when the pastor spoke one of his most stirring sermons ever.

We had a little paper to fill in before he had us turn to our neighbors and discuss how we would fill in the blank in the following sentence: God is found in _________ . Of course, I remembered my kitty and that same question (or thought) that I had yesterday. I think I thought of the correct answer, but didn't state it.

The correct answer that popped on the large overhead screen was "everything!"

The picture above is a picture of God at work. Of course, I don't understand it any more than the next person, but our Sovereign Lord is God of and in everything.

And what of the young man, Charles C. Roberts IV, only 32, who wrote that he was committing the gruesome acts of premeditated murder on all of these young girls (five girls -- soon to be six) because he was "angry" with God? He was angry, so his suicide note read, for God having taken his firstborn, a baby who lived only 22 minutes nine years ago. He also wrote of his guilt for molesting two girls twenty years ago when he was twelve, but the connection with the execution-style murders of the Amish girls in their classroom has not been explained as yet -- if it ever will be.

But again I ask, what of that young man?

Well, I have a hunch ... just a thought ... I don't know God's mind in the least. But Colossians 1:19-20 reads:

"For God was pleased to have all the fullness dwell in Him and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross."

I hope and pray that Charles C. Roberts IV has found that peace and reconciliation ...



[If any of you are offended by that thought, I apologize to you. It was meant as just that ... a thought ... a hopeful one that embodies the fullness of the mercies of Christ .. no more, no less. I am neither a pastor (God forbid) nor a Biblical expert, just a sinner working his way through the same questions that so many of us have ... deep down.]