Since it broke, I’ve been following the story about the parents and children held hostage by Chechen militants in a school in southern Russia. I’ve been praying and hoping that it would end peacefully, that somehow life would go back to normal for these little children and their parents.

But it didn’t.

I’m feeling so much emotion over this. I’ve been on the brink of tears every time I think about it today. I think this event is more emotional to me because yesterday was my kids’ first day of school. I keep thinking of how exciting that morning was for them — getting up early, putting on their new clothes, carrying the new school supplies they each picked out. We scrambled to get everything ready. And then we prayed and took pictures and rushed off to a new year of learning.

These Russian children and parents must have felt similar things the morning they woke up and got ready for school. Little kids are the same all over the world. I can’t even begin to imagine the horror and fear they experienced as that morning turned into terror. To be held at gunpoint, to watch friends die, to fear for their own lives.

They’re estimating that about 200 people died and hundreds more were wounded. Kids were carried out cry, screaming, naked and bleeding. The pictures are horrific. Precious lives snuffed out because of someone else’s agenda. It makes me cry. It makes me so angry.

James says “Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.”

And because of this, little children die. God I hate this!

What should my response be to this violence as I follow the Prince of Peace? Is there more I can do than watch, pray and mourn? How can I stand in the place of pain like Christ and bridge heaven and earth? Something in me wants to touch each child and take the pain away. But I can’t. I can only cry.