Remembering the Heath High School shooting

Like everyone else who was in the Paducah area (and later around the world), I remember very vividly where I was the moment I heard the Breaking News “Students at Heath High School were gathered for a Prayer Group when another student pointed a gun at them and started shooting.  We will continue to bring you more news as we know it.”  Those are probably not the exact words, but very close to what I remember from the car radio that morning as I was driving with my 2-month-old granddaughter to visit my mother for the day. 

The rest of the day I kept checking the news.  By the end of the day, the news was that a 14-year-old boy had killed three precious girls, paralyzed one girl for the rest of her life, and four others had to struggle with healing from gunshot wounds.  So many lives were changed that day.  Hopes and dreams were demolished or drastically revised.  The families have moved on but have been changed forever.

For me, each time I looked at my precious granddaughter that day I would think “Thank God you don’t understand what is happening, and I pray that you never have to experience something like this.”  Sadly, similar tragedies, and even some on a larger scale, have continued to happen across our nation and world over the last 20 years.  

As I sat watching the Memorial Service being televised on the WPSD this morning, I have flashed back in my mind to that day and the days, weeks, and months following.  The news media flooded the little community of Heath in Western McCracken County, KY.  Our area was in the headlines for days.  President Bill Clinton spoke of it nationally.  The joint funeral service was televised.  The thing that I always remember was that the three girls were in identical white caskets and friends were invited to sign them.  Strange, but touching at the same time. 

This was the first school shooting I remember being talked about on national media.  Sadly, they have continued and gotten worse.  When will these shootings - especially the ones at our schools - stop?  We don’t know.  Only God does.  They are a warning to us that something has gone dreadfully wrong in our society.  Evil (called “mental illness” by some) is rampant.  It makes it all the more important that we teach our children, and adults as well, about Jesus’s death for our salvation and show them God’s Love. 

I hope and pray we never again hear or read a news cast like the one I heard that fateful day - December 1, 1997.