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My heart breaks for the loss of 21 innocent lives and the unimaginable grief of their families after unbelievable evil invaded their school.

I search for answers, but there’s no human understanding of such a horrible tragedy. The news videos and pictures give a glimpse of the depths of despair of the families and their community.

What can I do for these families hundreds of miles away? It’s a helpless feeling. I continue to pray for God to comfort them. I turned to God’s Word, which applies to every circumstance of life, to find the words to say.

The Bible speaks to the grief of parents after Herod ordered the deaths of their sons two-years-old and younger, “A voice was heard in Ramah, lamentation, weeping, and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, Refusing to be comforted, Because they are no more” (Matthew 2:18 NKJ). Old Testament prophet Habakkuk wrote, “O Lord, how long shall I cry, And You will not hear?  Even cry out to You, ‘Violence!’ And You will not save’ (1:2 NKJ).

Jeremiah Johnston, a pastor and author, writes, “Habakkuk’s interaction with God reminds us that the life of faith often involves lament, complaint, and the pouring out of one’s honest emotions and feelings to God. Remember, often our prayers are aches and groans because we do not know what to say…Our burdens are so great, and we cannot find the words to pray, so we rely on the Spirit and groan in prayer for the families of Uvalde.”

There’s “a time to weep,” according to Ecclesiastes 1:4 NKJ. Repeatedly in the Bible God invites His people to weep before Him for the sorrows of the world. Johnston goes on to say, “There are 2,461 verses in the 150 chapters of the Psalms. One out of every three Psalms is a cry of lament. Hundreds of times in the Psalms, we’re taught to look to God when everywhere else looks confused.”

One of the 66 books of the Bible is called Lamentations. “For these things I weep; My eye, my eye overflows with water; Because the comforter, who should restore my life, Is far from me. My children are desolate because the enemy prevailed” (Lamentations 1:16 NKJ).

The Apostle Paul teaches us to “Weep with those who weep,” (Romans 12:13). A dear, elderly friend of mine once told me that the day the U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion, she wept all day. I later found out she wept all day on every anniversary of Roe v. Wade. Since January 22, 1973, over 63 million unborn children have died. Approximately 3,000 lives are lost each day in America.

A professor who taught at my college stated, “Until America returns to the respect and value of human life, there will always be killings, both of individuals and on a mass scale. We…put people into categories and take away their human qualities. Once you place another human being in a category, you can treat them anyway you want and justify it. We call an unborn baby a fetus and we destroy it,”

It’s time to weep for our children, both born and unborn.  Every life is precious.

— Jan White is author of “Everyday Faith for Daily Life.”