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Violence and the Image of God

The news reports that William Atchison, 21 was the person who killed two students at Aztec High School. We have asked the lover of our souls to comfort and grant peace to those he killed, their families, and their friends. We believe also that our God loves and cares for William's parents and we pray that He grants them solace, peace, and sleep as they too face the coming days, weeks, and months without their son, knowing now the emotional turmoil he was living with, and the violence he caused their community. They face the stigma of being the parents of William for longer than they may be able to bear.

William's terror has no doubt been burned into the consciences of his parents. There will be no memorials for their son, no community remembrances, no community processions from chapel to cemetery. They will have to deal with this on their own as they ask themselves questions without answers, cast, at least in their own minds, as "the murderer's parents," not eligible to grieve the loss of their son, forsaken by those shocked by William's acts, kept at arm's length as pariahs even among their neighbors. We dare not forget them because it would be too easy to let them fade from reality, to dismiss them, and their loss.

Because they too are images of our God whose lives have been completely devasted by things out of their control, on a day that started for them as it did for everyone else in Aztec - as just another day, we ask and we trust that the God of all comfort will sustain them and wrap them in His arms as they mourn the death of their son.

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