In the wake of the mass shooting at the Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, where 19 children and 2 teachers lost their lives, authorities still struggle to come to grips with what went wrong. Among the many questions, including those about issues with the police’ delayed response, is the question of how the gunman gained such easy access to the school in the first place. 

Details are slowly emerging. According to the Insider:

Security footage from Robb Elementary School in Texas shows that a back door was propped open by a teacher before Tuesday's deadly mass shooting, Texas law enforcement officials said. 

At 11:27 a.m. on Tuesday morning, the door that police believe was used by the 18-year-old gunman to enter the school was propped open by a teacher, Director of Texas Department of Public Safety Steven McCraw said at a Friday press conference. 

McCraw said the detail was confirmed through "video evidence." 

According to reports, the teacher had left her cell phone in her car, and ran to get it, leaving the door propped open so that it wouldn't close behind her. No malicious intent. No purposeful wrong action. Just a simple lapse in judgment and vigilance.

Michelle Davidson, the interim Minister to Children and Families at Shiloh Terrace Baptist Church, TX, looked beyond the open door at the school building to the deeper, spiritual implications of the threats facing our children today. She shared her thoughts in a public Facebook post which has since garnered more than 50K shares and reactions. She observes:

The door where the shooter entered the school was propped open (not knowing what was about to happen). The shooter was given access to the kids and adults on that campus.  The policemen were there but were waiting to go in.  

As I have pondered and talked with God over these things the last few days, I felt so overwhelming in my spirit, “this is a physical picture of what is happening in the spiritual.”

Today, we have left doors propped open by which the enemy has gained access to our children.  Access to fill their minds with anxiety, fear, lies, hate, lust, pornography and pride. I think in some cases, we have even given him a key to come and go as he wishes.  When we are not present and intentional in parenting, the enemy is more than happy to fill in the gaps through social media, screens, porn, drugs, evil, insecurity, depression and anxiety.   Parenting is not for the lazy or faint of heart these days - it’s difficult in different ways but ways that I believe come with a much greater cost.

We (I’m including me as well) have sat back and prayed asking God, when will things change?  We have waited for more reinforcements (for someone else to help our kids), or thinking it’s a phase, it will pass, meanwhile, the enemy is taking out our children one by one.

Satan has come to kill, steal and destroy. Period.

He is killing their God-given identity! He is stealing their beauty and purpose!  He is destroying their childhood and joy!  He is stealing their confidence and peace! 

So you don’t attend church today because you were forced to attend as a child? Such is the common complaint that I hear when the subject of church comes up with the unchurched. I understand. You were made to go. The only drug problem that your parents had was that they “drug” you to church. You didn’t particularly enjoy it, except for the Easter candy, the Christmas program, or maybe catching the eye of that pretty girl.

But the long, boring sermons were punishing. The Sunday School teacher thought you had a rotten attitude, and publicly called you out. You didn’t like wearing dressy clothes. And when the preacher talked, it seemed that he was looking right at you. You couldn’t stand singing in children’s choir and the list goes on.

So now, you refuse to attend. Furthermore, you resent the fact that your parents made you attend and have stalwartly determined NOT to require your children to attend church on the basis of allowing them to “make their own decisions.”

I understand. After all, that the church has been viewed as being too religious, judgmental, packed with hypocrites, and besides all that, they seem to want your hard-earned money.

While it may be true that the church, in general, has needed an overhaul in some ways, I would like to challenge you to consider another angle.

My parents not only made me attend EVERY church service (minimum of 3 days a week plus revival services), including extra youth service and prayer meetings, but they also made me carry my Bible. I brought an offering to Sunday School that came out of my allowance and had to memorize Bible verses. If we misbehaved in a church service, it might be that we were called out from the pulpit, or a “(h)usher” would attend our side. Rain or shine, we were in church!

We read I'll Love You Forever to our sons when they were growing up. We made up our own tune to the song, "I'll love you forever, I'll like you for always, as long as I'm living, my baby you'll be."

It's hard to remember those days in the rocking chair, reading it over and over to them, without getting tearful.

It turns out that many people can relate. The book's author, Robert Munsch, reports that it has sold 15,000,000 copies. His publisher didn't want to publish it because it didn't seem like a traditional children's book. 

If just reading the title gets you choked up with personal memories, you may not want to read the true story behind the book. Munsch says that the song came first:

I made that up after my wife and I had two babies born dead. The song 
was my song to my dead babies. For a long time I had it in my head and 
I couldn’t even sing it because every time I tried to sing it I cried. It was 
very strange having a song in my head that I couldn’t sing (ibid.).

He later built a story around the song, and the rest is history for millions of parents and their children. I imagine Gary, Dale, and Carl would tell you this is their favorite book from childhood. It's certainly ours.