Today the students of Chardon High School in Chardon, Ohio are in shock. Although details are still coming in, we do know that at least four other students were shot and a suspect is in custody.
So how do we deal with our teenagers in light of this tragedy? Here are five truths to remind the teenagers in your home, church or youth group to remember during this painful time:
1. Pray because God is still in charge and your prayers make a difference.
I’ll never forget when, just 20 minutes down the road from where I sit right now, the Columbine shootings took place. April 20th, 1999, marked a day of personal tragedy for me as I knew a lot of students at Columbine. I was shocked and felt helpless. Over the next few days I traveled down to Columbine High School and the adjacent Clement Park to pray for the school and with shocked and bewildered students and parents.
Although I felt helpless I really wasn’t…because I was praying. Kneeling is our position of strength as believers. When we pray we move the hand that moves the world and it makes a difference.
Challenge your teenagers to pray for the teenagers at Chardon High School. Consider having a prayer service for them in youth group this week in lieu of your normal mid-week program. Let us intercede on behalf of, not only Chardon High School, but our own schools in our own communities. Let us pray for revival, healing, the victims, the families of the victims and the shooter. Let us pray that the message of Jesus would advance and the hope of Jesus will overcome and overwhelm this school and our schools.
2. Don’t freak out because the worst thing that can happen to you is the best thing.
Last year there was a shooting in the building adjacent to where my kids go to school. The first day of school after the shooting, as I was driving my kids to drop them off, I asked my son, “Are you afraid to go to school because of the shooting?” He answered “a little bit.” I asked, “Jeremy, what is the worst thing that could happen to you?” He answered, “I get shot and killed.” I asked, “What’s the best thing that can happen to you?” He thought for a moment and blurted with a smile, “I die and go to heaven.” I reminded him that we as believers cannot lose when it comes to life or death. Jesus has won for us.
Let’s remind our teenagers of this truth in Hebrews 2:14-15, “Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might destroy him who holds the power of death—that is, the devil— and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.”
We have been freed from our slavery to the fear of death through the death, burial and resurrection of Christ. As a result we can say, along with the apostle Paul, “For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain” Philippians 1:21.
