Thoughts and Prayers.

I’ll preface this by saying that I’m not the biggest fan of Valentine’s Day. I am beyond obsessed with chocolate. I could eat my weight in Dove dark chocolatey goodness. And I usually love love. I tear up at the sight of old men picking out the perfect bouquet of flowers for their loved one. I adore my friends telling me about their plans with their boyfriends/fiance/husbands. My face hurts from smiling at all the best friends in the world giving their best gals some incredibly sweet words of affirmation. But I still don’t get super excited about this “holiday.” Anyways, this isn’t exactly what this post is about.After a chocolate breakfast start to Wednesday, February 14, I worked the opening shift at Anthropologie. I quietly giggled at the last-minute boyfriends running into our store and the girls looking for the perfect red dress (which Anthro actually does have!) for their date night. I checked my texts that were filled with love and light and extra sweetness, and I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face. At the end of the day, I curled into my bed with my dogs taking up most of the room.I then decided to do the worst thing that I could do - I checked my social media. It was an overload of couples declaring their love for each other. There were flowers, gifts, candy, and balloons. It was just overwhelming me. The further I scrolled down, the further I slipped into darkness, into loneliness. In my mind I knew that on a normal day I would think it was cute and then just scroll past it and probably not give it another thought, but today my heart hurt. In that moment, it would have seemed that I had looked into the eyes of Medusa. My stone heart anchored me to my mattress. I had no company except for a particularly nasty, green-eyed monster that guarded my door. I couldn’t leave my room.Correction: I couldn’t leave my room, but then I saw something absolutely and terrifyingly horrendous on my social media - the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. I felt disgusted with myself for feeling all "woe is me." The monster at my door had disappeared and my stone heart began to beat as I joined my mom in the living room. The light from the television flashed across our faces as the sun set and the moon took its place. My body couldn’t take this kind of sadness. I shook from emotion, and tears erupted from my eyes. I didn’t know any of these teenagers, but I felt like I did. I was crying like I did. I couldn't imagine a world with that much hatred, anger, sadness, and heartbreak, until I saw some of those images on the news.The tweets and instagrams rolled in a few minutes after. Everyone from my friends to celebrities were offering their thoughts and prayers on social media for the people of Parkland. But then I saw some of these famous people crossing out “thoughts and prayers” and replacing it with “policy and change.” At first, I was a little offended. Prayer is a wonderfully powerful thing. It’s communicating with the Almighty God, with our Maker. Then I actually thought more about it a little more, and here are my thoughts. Yes, please pray that there will be peace and healing in these families’ hearts. Pray that a tragedy like this will never happen again. Pray that voices like Emma Gonzalez's are heard. Pray. But I - and most likely everyone who reads this - are not lawmakers. We are not the President. I would love it if these men and women in power would pray for these families and for the future of our nation, but also use their responsibility to put change into action. I think that’s maybe what these celebrities are getting at.I write this post because I do have a voice, but also because I do not have the power to personally enact actual policy and change. We should combine both of these things, prayer and action, and pray for policy and change.  We can pray that laws are passed to make sure violence like this is stopped. I know that not everyone out there agrees with what to do next, or what to ban, or what regulations should be put in place, but I’m just here to say that we can pray. We can talk to our Father. We can come to Him in our most desperate times. If it’s depression, loneliness, heartbreak, anger - He will always comfort us. He will give us the passion and tools to do what is right. Days like February 14th reminded me of what an enigma this world is. One moment people are showering the people in their lives with love, while in the next moment, an unfathomable tragedy like a shooting happens. Either way, all I can do is pray and write this post.words by Paige Burleson and photo by Cate WillisSaveSaveSaveSave