Mother loses two sons to violence within three weeks [Please Read]

The link is to an article that I came across on The Root. These are incidents that can not be ignored as if they’ve happened far away. I ran across this article and immediately prayed for this mother because I don’t know and simply can not bear to imagine what she is going through. Two children gunned down on the streets of Oakland like cattle. The proximity of time and place was the real hook for this article. Two black boys struck down on the streets of a major American city. This kind of news doesn’t travel far. Think about it…in places like Chicago and Oakland black boys are killed all the time, lives are ended, potential unrealized, tears shed, eternity is set. The industry of death is always churning. The narrative of pain goes from one chapter to the next without a pause of break. Lee Weathersby III age 13 and his brother Lamar Broussard age 19 are gone in the span of three weeks. Mom is asking, “…why?”

The best counselor/preacher/theologian will come up short trying to answer Ms. New’s question with theologically prepared statements about tragedy and sin in our world. She needs an overabundance of love and care. She needs the presence of others as she works through raw pain. I pray that those closest to her would point her to Jesus. No doubt there will be those who will point to single motherhood and urban culture as comfort around such a tragic story. The reality is that these tragedies can strike in well manicured, homogeneous, gated communities. God knows tragedy and pain–He watched His innocent Son die for the failure of others.  (John 3:16)

Ms. New’s life has been changed. The pain of losing someone never leaves, but somehow the pain of losing your sons within three weeks has to strike as something akin to a tortured existence. Tragedies like this one are waiting to be written every day and for whatever reason they don’t make it to the evening news or more importantly into our hearts. Jesus help us.