This post is written to link with Five Minute Friday, where we write spontaneously for five minutes on a one-word prompt.  The prompt this week is “why.”

Oh, how many times I’ve asked this question! Why, Lord, did you allow the accident that took the life of our firstborn daughter Teresa and left me in a wheelchair?

Why, Lord, was our son David born with so many health problems? Why did You allow him to have such bad seizures as an infant that they left him with profound mental retardation and multiply health problems?

And more recently, why, Lord, did you allow David to get pneumonia during Hurricane Harvey, when getting the medication he desperately needed took days? Why did he end up in the hospital for almost a month and come home with even greater health problems than before?

Over the years, I’ve learned that these questions seldom receive an answer – other than, “trust Me.” God has taught me to stop asking why and instead come to Him in surrender, asking Him what He wants me to learn from the current circumstances.

This week, I found myself watching the news out of Florida and again asking why. But this week, different answers came. Why, Lord, did You allow this to happen? My child, I have no place in the public schools of America. You are seeing the results of this.

When I see events such as the murder of seventeen people this week by a young man who had made his desire to become the biggest mass murderer in a school known to many, even the FBI, and was ignored, I see a nation in desperate need of repentance. I hear God’s cry loud and clear to pray for our nation. I hope you will join me in this commitment.