Tragedy in Pennsylvania

I saw on Yahoo News this morning where an 18-year-old has shot the parents of his 14-year-old girlfriend and taken flight with her to parts unknown. How frightening to think that two parents lost their lives because they insisted on a curfew for their barely-a-teenager daughter. What was the boy thinking? Now he will either be a fugitive the rest of his days, or more likely, a prisoner. Who knows what will become of the girl. It is still up in the air as to whether she was abducted or participated willingly.

I think I know my child. I want to say he would never gun down two adults. I want to say that I have taught him that violence is never the answer. However, it is difficult to determine how much of what I am teaching him is sticking with him at his impressionable age of nearly six. I pray over him every night that God would keep him safe in his surroundings, that he would be a good child, obedient and loving. I know there are things out there in this world that will influence him. Will their influences overshadow that of mine and his dad's?

I'm sure that girl's parents never dreamed they would face the wrong end of a gun--especially for just doing the right thing and being concerned parents. Could it have been prevented? Were there predictors? Was there something they could have done differently? I doubt it. And that is the scarey part--knowing you are doing all you can, and that all you can do may not, in the end, be enough.

What do we do then? Just sit back and let the world take our children? No, parents, we must fight for them as if their lives depended on it, because they do. And not only that, but OUR lives depend on it. Think about it.