Wow! The Orlando shooting absolutely rocked my home state of Florida; it rocked our whole country. The race, gender, religion, or the sexual orientation of the victims doesn’t matter, it is devastating all the same. 49 fellow Americans killed and at least another 53 injured. Immediately after the shooting, my phone and the media blew up. This is how this terrible situation has been playing out in my mind:

1. Are my friends okay?

My first reaction was to worry about my friends. I didn’t know anything about the shooting except that it was in Orlando. I grew up in South Florida and have a bunch of friends that go to college, live, have family, or party in Orlando. All I wanted to know is that none of them were hurt. I prayed for them.

2. Why would someone do this?

This is a question many people are probably asking. My first intuition is that someone who could just go and attempt to murder people like that cannot be mentally stable. Maybe it is just me but I would never be able to cold-bloodedly just shoot people. I am not trying to say I understand his situation because I don’t think anyone could truly understand what is going on in someone else’s head. Some say ISIS is why he did it. Whether or not that is true, we will not know for sure. All I know was Christ was not in the shooter’s life.

3. Is this a gun problem?

We hear “everyone needs a gun” from one political party and then “no one needs a gun” from the other. We also hear everything in between, but I don’t know if we need to do mental health screening or make everyone get a license to get a gun, like Americans have to do if they want to drive. At the same time, I think we need increased security at certain events with large amounts of people to protect people, but I still believe we should be able to have guns to PROTECT ourselves. Everyone has their own opinion about gun control, but we really need our nation’s leaders to figure out how to stop or minimize massacres like this; that is why they are in the position they are in and have the job they do. In my mind, it’s not as much as a gun problem as a God problem.

4. How do I, as an American Christian, view this?

I have recently seen people posting nasty and ridiculous things such as, “good thing all these fags are dead” (sorry for the derogatory term) and “all Muslims and middle eastern people are terrorist and should not be let into our country.” Shame on us America for thinking like this! First of all, nobody deserves to die just because someone’s sexual orientation or love life does not agree with someone else’s personal beliefs. As Christians, we believe that marriage is between a man and a woman, but we don’t kill or hurt people who disagree. If anything, we should mourn for people created by God who were dominated by sin and now some will not be able to join us for eternity. Mourn the losses of their souls because you never know which one of them could’ve had the gospel shared to them the next day, and if that they would’ve decided to change their lifestyle. Second, as Americans, our families have all come to this country at one point or another looking for a better life, or have faced persecution. The people in the Middle East are just looking to escape so they can provide a better life for their families because most of those in the Middle East are being persecuted by ISIS. So, us deciding we can’t let anyone from the Middle East into America is going against the roots of this country and what it was built on. As Christians we should always be looking for opportunities to share the gospel and spread Christ’s love.

5. Why can’t we mourn without it being a political ordeal?

Honestly, I don’t think our political leaders are going about this correctly. They are using the Orlando shooting to promote themselves instead of properly mourning and taking this for what it is, a horrific tragedy. The Orlando shooting was one of the biggest massacres since 9/11 and the leaders of this country are treating it as campaign fuel. I don’t want to hear about Donald Trump keeping people out of our country or Hillary talking about no guns. I want us to seriously think about what just happened and how devastating it was, without politics taking over. If our political leaders want to be involved, they should mourn and help remember the ones that were lost. They should help to raise support for those injured in the shooting because some are fighting for their lives. Our political leaders should be trying to unite this country instead of split it. We need our political leaders to be empathetic human for a second and put the people of this country before their political agendas.

This really makes me realize that anything can happen at any time. What questions has this shooting made you ask? I’m very curious please respond in the comment section below.