I am officially three days behind on my blog.  There are three names remaining of those killed in Sandy Hook Elementary.  I have to tell you that I chose the names randomly.  At first it was alphabetical from the top of the list.  At some point, I connected a verse that I thought about a lot with Victoria Soto.  Beyond that, the names were generally chosen at random.  One day I let my niece choose.  Last Thursday, I knew I had to write about the principal.  In writing about these 26 people, God made connections for me.  Not all the connections went anywhere amazingly, but each one was something I needed to hear that day.  And each one reminded me that these connections are God speaking.

Today, I approached the list.  Three names left.  The first is Avielle Richman.  When I went to find information about her, I found a blog.  You can link to it HERE.  The fact that her father had been blogging about events in Avielle’s life spoke to me.  Am I writing enough?  Should I record other events?  What if I blogged about my life and my children?  What a gift this blog must be to the family now….just as arlaallen.com is to me.

Mary Sherlach’s daughter says her mom never took off her work hat.  She was the school psychologist  who, with the principal, confronted the gunman.  She was always giving advice, was always sought out but others for help, and never walked away from a crisis.  She did not cower that day.  I thought of our God.  He is all these things to me.  Even in my most dark moments of life, He walks directly toward me.  Never turning away.  

And the last name, the one I always meant to be last is Victoria Soto.  Early reports indicated that Victoria hid her students in closets and cupboards to keep them out of sight of the gunman before facing him herself.  The emotion of this still wells up in my as I write this post.  This is the resourcefulness, quick-thinking, passion, and selflessness that walks into first grade classrooms around our nation. Victoria Soto had given her life to these children on the first day of school.  Elementary teachers do that.  They love our children fully.  And on Dec 14, she made the ultimate sacrifice for them.

John 15: 9 – 17 says:   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.”

Jesus is not asking us to die for one another.  He is asking us to serve one another.  He chose us.  Why do we not choose Him?  He also lived among us.  He truly understands.  He knew hatred.  He knew evil.  He suffered rejection.  And on my behalf, he paid the price for my salvation.  What am I not doing to serve Him and my fellow man?  And so the list is complete….but not the work and certainly not the blog.  God bless you until I write again… it will be soon.