warehouse

I’m not going to say much about the anniversary Wednesday other than what follows.

Virginia Tech will always own a piece of my heart. There are too many emotions and memories tied up in that place to even begin to do justice with words. I came to know the Lord there. I love VT like a mother. And up until a year ago, it had always kind of been my “safe place.” I even used to have classes in Norris on Tuesday mornings almost every semester.

I’m not trying in the least to be profound (or cheesy for that matter) when I say I felt the last bits of my innocence shatter last April. That day was actually twice as difficult because it was also the day we had to put our dog of 15 years down.

I remember having to deal with the unfolding events last year while out on a “staff day away” over at a miniature golf place up in Plano. It was a bright and beautiful day, but I felt like vomiting the whole time. Even that evening when Nate called me to give me some updates I was still struggling to keep my heart from dying. I didn’t know Brian Bluhm like some of you. I knew him, went to dinner with him and Mike and others a few times, but I had to facebook him just to put his last name (which I never knew till that point) to a face. When I found him and read his wall full of posts from people begging him to give them some word on his well-being I almost had to hang up on Nate then and there.

It was also about that time that I noticed a cartoon frame someone had drawn showing all the big Virginia school mascots comforting a hurting Hokie Bird. And I lost it. You have to understand, the Hokie Bird is a very bright and humorous icon for us. To see him depicted in tears was just too powerful an image for me to process.

I still hate that picture.

THIS ARTICLE I found recently makes me all kinds of sad. I can’t imagine what this last year has been like for this family. I pray the Lord will make himself known to them. They need Jesus. How else can they possibly continue to deal with this?

And then I found THIS ARTICLE today. Check this part out:

Of the 26 students that Virginia Tech lists as injured last April, six graduated and the other 20 are back at school, university spokesman Larry Hincker said.

If I’m reading this part right, I have never been more humbled or more proud to be a Hokie. Of the 26 people injured, ALL 26 either graduated or ARE STILL AT VIRGINIA TECH to this day.

*FIST PUMP*

When night falls, and the weight of this broken world presses us to the ground, every word, every glance, every breath takes on new meaning and significance. And when death tolls we become, in life’s greatest irony, fully alive. We are either alive without hope or alive with confidence that outlasts the grave. But in either case we are more aware than ever of the fragility of life and the value of a single moment in time.

For those of us who follow Jesus, the truths we have professed through life either crumble beneath us, having never fully taken root in our souls, or become living fiber that literally holds us together from second to second. Songs we have sung in brighter days either still in silence or awaken with thundering resolve.

That was certainly the case Saturday night as hundreds of students gathered on Henderson Lawn, a sloping hillside nestled on the corner Virginia Tech where the campus meets Blacksburg’s tiny college drag. They came together for vtONE, an event uniting all the Believers at Tech in worship and prayer and the only large student-led event sanctioned by the school since the shootings. Led by students, vtONE is all about God being glorified at Tech. And though many had just returned to campus from attending the funerals of their friends, they wanted more than anything to have the chance to worship and pray together before the semester came to a close. In what I consider one of the greatest privileges of my life, I was invited to speak to them and pastor them during this night. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to mourn with them and remind them that Virginia Tech will live again…

… That’s the generation we are so honored to serve. They’re not perfect, nor are they fearless. Yet when the moment came and the worst mass shooting in our nation’s history rocked their campus to the core they were the ones leading with truth and compassion, and what a sight it was…Henderson Lawn filled with the anthem of the broken and the brave.

Please don’t forget the students of Virginia Tech. For out of the ashes glimmers of hope are already beaming.

-Louie Giglio

We are Virginia Tech.