TTUMBLER RIDGE, B.C.

The unimaginable happened in Canada, Tuesday, February 10, 2026: a school shooting with innocent children and a tacher being killed. Canada went into shock!

 

On Friday evening thousands of Canadians  joined in the vigil that was held to remember the victims, their families and all the first responders who brought their hands and hearts to help the victims.

 

Leaders asked us to pray.

 

Now, prayer must never be a stop-gap effort that we cry out to the supernatural powers because we have nothing else to hang on to. If that is the only time we pray, it sounds lke a drowning man grasping for  anything to hand on to in order to survive. 

 

We pray to the living  God who has created each one of us. Our lives are a blessing and a gift from the living God who is ever present and who always seeks each one of us, even if we walk away from God. The God we pray to is a passionate God who cries when we suffer, who laments when we wander away in sin and who seeks each and every one.

 

Prayer is never neutral. Each human can and should pray. Each prayer reaches the ears of God.

 

At the end of the Our Father we pray “deliver us from evil.” The more correct translation is ‘deliver us from the testing.” This means we ask to be delivered from such moments that we might give up on the goodness of God. Tuesday afternoon was such a moment. How could someone be so distributed by mental illness that they would inflict such destruction on another human being?

 

We pray for each victim of this shooting, and each family that has been so deeply hurt. We pray also to the teenage shooter who suffered so much from mental illness.

 

We pray for all the survivors who must live with and work through this horrible and painful experience. These memories will go with them for the rest of their lives. May they be given strength from the hand of God to deal with and survive these horrible memories.

 

We pray for the first responders, all health workers involved in the tragedy and all our political leaders who came together on the Friday vigil in Tumbler Ridge. The compassion and support shown in that vigil was one of the finest moments o our country Canada. We pray for every caring heart, every supportive hug that that given at that vigil.

 

We pray for the power that only God can give us when we ask for help and support. God will carry us through these horrible tragedies. 

 

Now, I would invite you in these days  to bring your own prayers to God for the victims and families of Tumbler Ridge.