My son, Aaron, asked me to write this. Actually his request was that I remember. That single word was the last word in the suicide note he wrote before he murdered my wife and daughter Dec. 6, 1996, in the rural community of Moses Lake, Washington.

Prior to that, my son’s world was darkened by the school shooting at Frontier Junior High in Moses Lake that claimed the lives of two students and a teacher. One of the students killed was Arnie—Aaron’s mentor and cousin, and my Godson.

By profession I am an engineer. My training and life experiences to that point in time always had an emphasis on numbers, logic and making everything fit into the “system.” The tragic school shooting followed by the horrific death of my family changed my immature view of the world. That change did not happen quickly or without pain.

Why?

During the winter of 1997 I walked through the rooms of my house that had once been filled with laughter, and later rang out with gunshots. God and I battled, and I struggled to answer the question of Why?

Within the walls of that house, my faith struggled and died. Through that death my faith was shattered, reshaped, tempered and resurrected by Christ as He carried me out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. My relationship with Christ, and the grace He offered me for my iniquities and failures, was all that kept me from following in my son’s footsteps.

The Failure of Relationships

Engineers are taught always to look at the root of any problem for probable solutions—or the problem may become chronic. Since 1996, there have been numerous school shootings impacting our society. I have watched and prayed for other families—as school shootings in Dunblane, Scotland; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Littleton, Colorado; Santee, California; Erfurt, Germany; Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania; Blacksburg, Virginia; DeKalb, Illinois, and elsewhere have taken the lives of other children and young people.

As I prayed, I deliberated and discovered the root I was looking for—the common thread: the failure of relationships.

This article is being written for church youth leaders—lay and professional—to help communicate ways to try and help prevent another tragedy from occurring again. Unfortunately, because the issues involved are relational, there is a great probability another school shooting will happen. Yet in the same vain—because it is relational—there is a great possibility your influence and guidance can keep it from happening to those in your environment.

The Most Difficult, Yet Critically Essential Position

In my opinion, the role of the youth worker is the most difficult but essential position in any church family. As our  society continues to grow and become more institutionalized, we are living in a time when individual relationships are being sacrificed. The machine of our society is churning around us with no regard to who we are or its impact on our families and children.