Like many of you, I’ve been heartbroken this week. It is hard to imagine Easter arriving by Sunday, but I was also reminded that heartbreak is our natural companion during Holy Week. Any words I could offer feel inadequate, but silence too seems insufficient.

I was reading the traditional seven last words of Christ, which churches often use as part of their Good Friday services, and found them shaping my prayers in this time of grief.

Prayer for Gainesville
(after the seven last words of Christ)

“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
It feels too soon for that and too unbelievable to say that they, we, I know not what I have done. What I continue to do and allow to be done.

“Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”
I trust that Robert rests now in Love’s embrace. But his death has shown me how far we still have to go to make a paradise of this place.

“Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.”
Another beloved child killed. Another family left to piece together its broken tree.

“My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?”
Where were you when this child thought to take his own life? When he placed the 911 call? When the police showed up? In that moment of hope when he put down his toy gun? And when he picked it back up? Where were you when they told him “not one more step?”

“I thirst.”
For a world that is not constructed of brokenness, of systems that interlock in the shape of death. (For some.) For a community where we could say “not here” and not be proven so wrong. For a heart that is not paralyzed by grief and guilt, anger and powerlessness.

“It is finished.”
No. No. No. No. No.

“Into your hands I commend my spirit.”
Give me something useful to do. O God, give me something useful to do.