In Loving Memory of the Lives Lost

April 20, 1999

Page 2

In honor of the lives lost, wounded, and families of Littleton Colorado
April 20, 1999

A Senseless Tragedy of the Innocent

After the recent Tradgies of the Littleton, Colorado shootings by two teenage boys... I am compelled to write this. It is ashame that our country and our school systems allowed this sort of tradgey to occur, once again.. How many lives are going to be lost before something is done to prevent this from happening? Will the next victims be your
children or your grandchildren?  We as a people must do something., we have to protect our children.. School is suppose to be a safe place for them to learn, not a battlefield where they are scared to walk down the halls..

It is time, that we stand and demand something be done.. Parents need to know what their children are viewing on the internet.. where there is easy access to hate sites, and porno, and websites that will tell an 11 year old or younger how to make a bomb.. they need to know what kinds of things they are viewing on tv or about the books and magazines they are reading.. Parents need to get control back..

Where are the children that were out playing in the parks?  Where are the children that were on the ballfields? Where are the children???  They are dying, dying at the hands of other children.. and why are we not seeing what the problems are.. Our children are litterly getting by with murder..  What are the answers?  What is it going to take to get them
to understand the difference between right and wrong.. Spare the rod, spoil the Child? Perhaps, but does violence solve violence?  I am not against spankings, but there comes a time when that child is too old to be spanked, and other methods of discipline are needed...  I don't know exactly what all the answers are, what works for one child might not work for another.. but I do know they need to fear punishment for doing wrong instead of fearing walking down the hallways at school where it is suppose to be safe..

We have a problem with drugs and alcohol, and gang violence.. what are we doing to stop it? It takes every single person in a community to raise a child, we all need to be aware of what is going on around us.. Don't turn your backs because you don't want to get involved, if you don't get involved, then the child you ignored and hoped would just disappear might just take the life of your own child..

They are crying, do you hear them?? do you hear the children crying out for help? they could be your son or your daughter. Are you listening? I mean really listening to not just their words but their moods, their demeanor and their tone of voice, are you looking into their eyes when they are talking or are you too busy?

What about the talk shows that feed them with violence,the talk shows
that are producing and promoting the shows that condon violence on national tv.. they have hate groups, and families that are tearing into each other.. ripping clothes off and throwing chairs at each other fighting on stage, and verbally beating up another person.. How can we as a nation condon this type of behavior.. How can we allow our children to be fed with such violence? how can our tv stations condon showing such trash?  What about video games and hate music and violent movies and violent shows on television..WE must start noticing what our children are putting into their minds.. They are children.. they don't understand that dead is dead and that person will not walk in the room again next week.. But we can't blame it all on those things, they are not causing this to happen but they are feeding into the hate. They are children they shouldn't be filled with so much hate, so where is it all coming from?  It must be steming from somewhere, we live in a violent society.

What are we teaching our children when they go to school and tease another person because they are different?  Aren't we all different?  Have we not all suffered our own pain and torment in one way or the other, but does that give us the right to harm another person?  Respect for another human life must begin at home.

Our health systems and our social services need to work together..
We need new laws..laws that will protect not only the children from
abusive parents, but parents from abusive children..

When a child is totally out of control that child needs help.. he is crying for help, but no one is hearing him.. or no one is listening.. He needs to be placed into treatment that a doctor and a parent can agree on and not leave that up to the insurance companies that do not have a medical license.. And I don't care how many physicans they have on their staff, that is exactly what it is, on their staff and they are going to
be working for the company.. and should not be allowed to make
the decisions and over ride what a childs doctor and parents deem
essential behavior modification...Shall we treat the children that have the behavior problems, the violent hate filled children that perhaps have a mental disorder and/or chemical imbalance on the one side, or shall we treat the depression and grief of the numerous other childern that will be affected by the grief and violence that the troubled child caused when he kills someone or many?

Illness, Mental Illness.. What is being said when we can not get the proper treatment for a mental illness.. a chemical inbalance.  Ill emotions, do they not matter?  Do you wait till you have a heart attack before you start taking medication to prevent it, once you have been diagnosed with a condition?
Do you not take insulin for your Diabetes when it is needed to
keep your body in balance and not wait until you go into a crisis?

If you have an allergy to something do you wait until you are in
a crisis before you get the medication that will help with that
attack, or are you prepared and keep the medication on hand
in case you need it?

What are the answers? Is not our total body important?  After the
recent events can you say that a mental illness is not Life threatening?

I have mentioned many things that can be the cause of what is happening, but not one can be the total blame, and there are many other things that have not been mentioned.. But the deaths and the injuries both physical and emotional, are the outcome. And it is all so very senseless..  Our childern are our future and we need to do everything possible to raise them to be productive members of society.. We need to bring God back into the family.  And discipline back into the homes and schools.  Our children need us to do that for them.  They need our love and respect, but they also need to know that thru discipline, we love them enuff to want them to do what is right.  You can'not become your childs bestfriend, but you must let him/her know that you are his/her parent, a parent that is going to stand beside him in whatever he does, right or wrong and that your love is unconditional.  And if you have that much respect for your child, he will have that respect for you, and he will want to do things that will please you by doing good or what is right, because with that love and respect comes maturity, without anger.  When a child is left to raise himself, he doesn't know right from wrong he must be taught.. and when you teach with love and respect, you will get love and respect back, because when you teach with love and respect, it feels good, it does not feel good to be ridiculed and belittled that produces depression and with depression can come bitterness and anger and a feeling that he must make people respect him.  He will get that respect even if he has to intimidate to get it.

Love your children, teach them the way that they should go and when they grow old they will not depart from it.
 

Columbine High School Student Living Testimony Of Divine Protection

Alana Lawson will never forget the most harrowing 20 minutes from
Tuesday, April 20, 1999. Her son, Aaron, had just called the
house to report a shooting at Columbine High School in suburban
Denver, Colo. Aaron was safely away from the school, but his
brother, Terry, was in the cafeteria.

"My husband, Steve, is a federal officer," Alana remembers. "He
went to see if he could find Terry. I turned on the TV. My first
reaction was to do something to find him. I wanted to go down and
hunt for him. But I knew that would probably impede things. One
of us needed to stay home in case he called. It was about 20
minutes before I spotted him walking across one of the TV
cameras. I'll tell you, that 20 minutes of not knowing was
probably one of the worst things I've ever experienced."

Even in the middle of not knowing, Alana never lost a deeper
sense of peace. "If it had not been for the grace of God," she
says, "I probably would have lost it. But I knew that we had pled
the blood of Jesus over our children from birth, and I just said
a real quick prayer that God would protect him and his friends."

Her prayers for Terry were answered. When he came home later in
the afternoon, she couldn't hug him enough.

"His first reaction was, 'Mom, I'm OK.' But my first reaction was
to hold on for life."

Yet, intermixed with her joy for her son were other emotions.

"I was so relieved, but yet I was still grieving because I knew
that there were going to be a lot of people that were hurt and I
knew that my children had lost their innocence. This was a time
when they should be carefree and be enjoying life. They were
going to be robbed of that. There was an exhilaration of knowing
my children were okay, but yet the dread of the things that were
to come."

Terry's experience in the cafeteria proved the value of his
mother's prayers. He is still too shaken from the experience
to want to talk about it.

"He told me he was in the cafeteria when he heard what sounded
like firecrackers at first," Alana says. "He said he knew when he
heard it that it wasn't fireworks, that it was gunshots."

Someone had come running into the cafeteria screaming about the
shooting outside and telling everyone to get down. Students
jumped under tables. Terry remembered thinking, "This is stupid.
If they come in here, we're dead."

"When he stood up," Alana says, "he looked out the window and
Dylan [one of the suspects] was standing there. And he turned and
he looked right at Terry through the glass. He was less than 10
feet away from him."

The young man turned and looked at Terry, then lifted either a
shotgun or rifle he was carrying. He looked at Terry, then shook
his head, and turned around and shot several other students who
were running away.

Terry told the other students in the cafeteria that they needed
to get out of there. They left the building and ran down the
street to a neighboring house. Steve Lawson found his son there.

Terry will never forget how close he came to death. He will never
forget the other students he saw shot. The young man who was shot
twice in the leg while running away. Another student shot in the
back. A girl who was hit.

"He saw it all in a matter of seconds," Alana says. "It was a
pretty harrowing experience for him and it will take him a long
time to get over it. I told him God has a purpose for why he was
saved and he has a definite purpose in life."

God's purposes are the focus for Terry's pastor, the Rev. Ken
Summers of Dakota Ridge Assembly of God. Summers visited with
Terry last night.

"This isn't just a time of embracing and loving and hugging each
other and saying that we're going to make it," Summers points
out, "but to see people really turning to the Lord through this
situation. And just realizing that while we live in a day where
incredible revival is taking place, that there is a tremendous
tide of evil and spiritual darkness that is at work. My heart as
a pastor is for our youth especially to understand the
confrontation between spiritual light and spiritual darkness.
This is not a time to trifle, but it's a time to trust God and
choose who you're going to trust and where you're going to find
the strength of your life."

E-mail Sonja

This guestbook is for Condolences to the Families, Students and Friends in Littleton, Colorado

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