An Open Letter to Virginia Beach: We Are #VBStrong

Dear Virginia Beach,

As a local, we am so really contemptible that we are during this indicate where mass shootings, that have spin a consistent messenger of today’s society, have found a approach to supplement Virginia Beach to a list. With damaged hearts, we mount with a whole community, generally those whose lives have been irrevocably altered by a horrific sharpened this week. Some are parents, siblings, and children of those killed or bleeding by gun violence. Some are survivors who have been bleeding in shootings or who have witnessed terrible acts of gun violence. We will live with a effects of Friday’s tragedy for a rest of a lives.

On Friday, May 31, 2019, a story and fiber of a city were altered dramatically by an indignant gunman and former worker shot adult a Virginia Beach metropolitan building. This meaningless act took a lives of 12 people and bleeding several others. It was a day when a lives were shifted in ways that are still maturation today.

Immediately after a shooting, many have and will attend candlelight vigils, share moments of silence, commemorative convocations and special church services. But after a few brief weeks, all these events will dissipate. Those not directly impacted will seem to lapse to a normal life though any issues. However, many will onslaught to try to navigate a new normal that was bearing in their laps.

Life can be really unpredictable

Even yet we try to map out any aspect of a lives, spasmodic we get thrown a bend round that we had not bargained for. When we are forced to confront these indeterminate spin of events we can possibly concede ourselves to be swallowed adult in a dark or wretchedness of doubt or lift adult a bootstraps and face a conditions head-on.  Crawling brazen with pain, disappointment, grief, anger, and uncertainty.

Even in my possess life, while following a trail we suspicion would lead to one thing, my skeleton were altered opposite my will and personal skeleton that we “knew” was designed for my life. As a result, a whole new locus was non-stop to me. Through some flattering severe times, dear practice and insinuate encounters with God, a resources of knowledge we perceived is a many profitable possession we own. Now, on this side of those practice we can contend as a barbarous producer Maya Angelou declared:

Still, we rise!

We will arise as we go by this together. Of course, a practice will be singular since a tragedy has influenced us differently. But, we are #VBSTRONG and will arise again. Here are a few things we have schooled when forced into a new normal:

• Life does not finish since of a disruption:  A intrusion mostly launches we into uncharted territory. These uncertainties can means we to knowledge a clarity of detriment, though we have to remind yourself that we can and will tarry this. Expressing your feelings might acquit we for a time though it is critical not to get held adult in a pain of a moment. The rut of unpleasant emotions will sack we of a profitable appetite we need to reanimate and to pierce on. Get it out and get over it so we can keep going.

• Life is a routine and comes in stages:  Life happens in chapters so do not settle in and get gentle in any proviso of life. Just as anything out of deteriorate is spoiled, so it is with a “seasons” of life. If we try to reason onto a deteriorate that has upheld it causes we to spin “spoiled.” In sequence to be uninformed for your subsequent proviso of life, we have to be peaceful to leave what is gentle and welcome a “new” normal. In a disproportion of a correct male named Solomon, “To everything, there is a deteriorate and a time for a purpose underneath a sun.”

• Life does not need we to know it all in advance:  Sometimes we are training as we go. Whether roving for a business or going to revisit family my father and we spend a lot of time pushing on a interstate. Many times we are roving a rode we have not navigated before, one full of curves, hills, and tunnels. We are not always certain what will be around a subsequent corner, though only as we continue to expostulate brazen on a tour – regardless of a unknown, there are times we contingency do a same in a lives.

In this life, we will not always know what is during a subsequent dilemma of a map. At times, we are forced to try a unknown. Even with a many minute plans, we have designed for a lives, life can chuck us a curveball and means a large change to a game. It is not what happens to us that matters most; it is some-more about a response to a situation. When life throws we a curveball, and do not worry – this is not a final one, we can possibly abuse it, representation during it, try and evasion it, or stay in a diversion and wait for a subsequent pitch. Whatever we do remember, “Life is a journey, not a destination.”

Virginia is for lovers

We know a energy of fear, we contingency now renovate it into love. Fear can't find a approach though direction. Love can. We are #VBSTRONG – We harm and grieve, though conjunction will spin a permanent address. Instead, we will concede adore to reanimate us.

God, extend me a peace to accept a things we can't change, a bravery to change a things we can, and a knowledge to know a difference.

Whether we trust in God or not a peace request relates to all of us. Seeking a knowledge to know a disproportion is a query we should all wish to be on if we caring about postulated well-being. Truth is, we can't have concept peace or bravery any some-more than we can always keep both a bicep and triceps contracted. They are “antagonistic,” or “reflexive.”  This is because alcoholics seeking change recite a peace request during AA meetings. a idea is to change some things and not others while usurpation a dis-ease though not a behavior. In essence, holding their standards for a improved life as unchangeable while acknowledging a past is still a partial of a journey.

Without question, this is a horrible time, though we will arise from fear together. We will lift any other up; tender from a time we spent in fear, exposed from a newfound self-empowerment. Trembling not from fear, though newfound strength; we will arise with fluttering legs and welcome any other. We will feel a leisure of vouchsafing go of fear.  In this leisure and in this space we will find love, and we will find it in any other.

This is not a end. We will rise. We are Virginia Beach strong!

Grace and Peace,

Cherese Jackson

Image Credits:

Top Image Courtesy of Jillian Chilson’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License
Featured Image Courtesy of Jeff Futo’s Flickr Page – Creative Commons License

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