As a proud Southern Louisiana girl who is in Virginia for the summer and living alone for the first time ever, it was a devastating blow to look down at my phone at work on July 23 only to see a USA Today notification involving yet another shooting in the United States – this one in Lafayette, just 45 minutes from my house.

45 minutes is a ways, and normally I might not have thought anything of it, but in my hometown, weekend fun outside of football season consists of bowling or a movie. Needless to say, everyone tends to migrate to Lafayette in the summer. As the immediate shock wore off, I called my dad for a headcount of my family — my brother had been at the movies the night before — but everyone was fine. Then, upon remembering that my friend had been anticipating the "Paper Towns" premiere that night, I hung up to quickly — and quite nervously — call and make sure she was okay as well. After I had those bases covered, for whatever reason, I figured everything was fine. A group message of my high school friends involved a lot of “everyone respond please so we know you weren’t there” talk for a little while, but the reality of a situation like this didn’t seem to hit home for any of us quite yet.

Tragedy often outdoes the imagination because no one tends to daydream about suffering and despair. So in this situation, whether it was the seven stages of grief kicking in or just the human instinct to reject uncomfortable situations, I ignored the prospects of being connected to the event in any other way than I had already thought of, and went on with my night.

Later, as I got home, the notifications continued to come in, describing more details of the number of people killed and injured. I couldn’t stop myself from thinking how probable it was that I would know someone who had been there. It suddenly occurred to me that I had friends and family in Lafayette right down the street from the theater that I hadn’t even thought of calling. All I could do was wait, so I tried to pass the time. Naturally, that involved looking at Facebook: the ultimate distraction. Much to my despair, what I found was not BuzzFeed articles and videos of puppies. Almost all of my friends had posted either links to news websites where the media was blowing the situation out of proportion or comments about families and loved ones being safe. I still did not realize the severity of the situation until I continued to mindlessly scroll and saw a post from John Green:

For a man who was in the midst of a movie premiere to stop and take the time to recognize a suffering community, I realized that things must be bigger than I thought. Not long after, the names appeared. A woman who used to teach at my school, albeit one I didn’t know very well, had been shot in the leg jumping in front of her friend and pulling the fire alarm. Her friend teaches at a high school fifteen minutes from my house. One of the women who was killed owned Parish Ink, a company that produces Louisiana shirts and stickers, one of which I display on the front of my laptop. The other girl killed was only two years older than me and was friends with some of my friends.

These all seem like very distant relationships, even as I read them now. And, although I am beyond thankful and blessed that none of my close friends or family was hurt, I cannot deny the hole in my chest accompanying the only thought that kept running through my head: It’s not safe anymore. A theater that I frequented with my friends, celebrated at for birthdays, and drove past more times than I can count is now a place where lives were taken. That’s never going to go away.

I have been asking myself questions about my belief in God and the nature of suffering a lot lately because of my summer religious studies class on contemporary Christian theologies. Topics we have addressed a few times over the last two weeks include why a good God allows suffering, and where He is during that suffering. Until now, I thought I had an answer for those questions. In fact, when I finish writing this, I go back to writing a paper on how God is in the suffering of those who are hurting; but how do I continue believing that when the havens for escape that I have come to know are no longer safe? I still find myself unable to fathom the extremity of this event, but you can be sure that even in my doubt I’ll still be praying. The only thing keeping me going is that I can in no way understand the reasoning for this, so I must look to the One who does understand.

I am ashamed to say that I have not dutifully looked into the other shootings that have taken place in the past couple of months, and that is going to change. I’m going to pray for every one of those who were hurt, are hurting, or are in pain because I hope that they are doing the same for Lafayette now.