I’ve often turned to writing to help me sort through complicated thoughts, to find meaning in darkness and to make sense of difficult things. But even as I start to type this, I know I will never, ever be able to make sense of what happened two weeks ago in Nashville.

On Monday, March 27, Audrey Hale shot through the glass doors to Covenant Christian School with the sole intent of taking precious, innocent lives. Fourteen minutes later, law enforcement had neutralized the situation. Seven lives lost, including three young children. And ever since, the city has been reeling.

I pulled out of my apartment complex in Nashville a little after 10:30 a.m. on Monday, March 27 and was immediately surrounded by upwards of thirty police cars. Pulling over, I tried to put the pieces of the scene together. Traffic on the road behind me was blocked off, as was the road in front of me. All of a sudden, three ambulances flew by heading in the opposite direction, towards Vanderbilt. A police officer waved me through so I had no choice but to move forward, holding my breath when I remembered the school on the top of the hill across the road.

It was the most beautiful spring day—the flowers were freshly blooming, the world turning green after a gray, rainy winter. The sky was impossibly blue and speckled with puffy clouds. It was that first warm spring day that always brings with it a feeling of hope and renewal.

How could something so inexplicably awful happen on a day like that?

I had a feeling when I pulled through the police barriers that I wouldn’t be returning home for a while. I spent the day across town, alternating between refreshing developing newsfeeds and calling friends in disbelief. The news crews were reporting live from my front yard as families were reunited and we learned more about the attack. When I made it home late afternoon, news helicopters continually flew over the area until late at night, and started their routes again before sunrise the next day.

My traumatized brain initially shut down in an attempt at self-defense, so I didn’t cry until three days later, when I brought flowers to the memorial constructed at the school entrance. My legs went numb, chest tightened to the point where I could not breathe, eyes filled to the brim. I have never experienced such a physical reaction to grief. There were innumerable flowers, stuffed animals, notes, and balloons beneath the smiling faces of those taken too soon. Stuffed animals. They were babies. And the memorials have spread throughout the city—there are red and black ribbons tied to mailboxes and front doors and lamp posts all across Nashville to show support for Covenant families.

I can’t pretend to claim the trauma of the families who experienced this loss firsthand. Of the children and teachers in that building who made it back home that Monday. Of Hale’s family left behind. But the city of Nashville, and I believe our country, is anguished that this keeps happening. And we should be. Our hearts are broken at this clear manifestation of evil in action.

On Palm Sunday, my church had tissue boxes dispersed throughout the sanctuary. The Sunday school children all entered the room, joyfully waving palms and processing down the aisles singing ‘Hosanna! He is the God who saves us’—and they were so, so happy. There was not a dry eye in the sanctuary.

Even as evil has pummeled our city and irreparably changed lives, the children have the courage to continue singing. Those little ones, many of whom lost a friend that Monday, declared for all the teary adults in the room that hope is not lost—that Jesus came back to save us from exactly this level of devastation. Our community often has the luxury of forgetting our deep need for help, our inability to take control and fix everything ourselves—we have been reminded of and humbled by our shortcomings, and we are met with grace.

Hope in the face of this evil? That’s an act of defiance. The children led our way on Palm Sunday, and I hope I have the courage to follow.

Olivia Harre

Olivia graduated from Calvin in May 2018 with a double major in business and writing. She now works as an editor in Nashville, Tennessee and is eating her way through the restaurants of her new town. She enjoys weekend trips with friends, petting other people’s dogs, and drinking coffee like a Gilmore Girl.