Jamie and I are taking our children Christmas shopping tonight at a local mall.
After looking at the picture, and reading about, each of the Omaha victims in the newspaper today, it gives me pause. Will we be in danger? Should I allow our 13 year old to take one of her brothers to a different part of the mall to shop? Or, should I require our family to stay in a pack the entire time?
Should I coach my children on how to take cover if a shooting begins?
But, then, I think the odds that anything like Virginia Tech/Columbine/Omaha will happen tonight are relatively rare.
I wonder if the bigger danger at the mall isn’t rampant materialism? How does one take cover at the mall from that?
Hi Chris! I came here via your comment on David Wayne’s blog about Tebow and so glad that I did. I’ll be very interested in your book in forgiveness. In the meantime, I must say that this post on mall dangers is very insightful. It hasn’t been that many years ago that I repented of my own sin of materialism and the attraction to shop no longer holds me. However, that doesn’t mean that walking through the mall doesn’t tempt me. My daughter and I have just gotten into the habit of praying before we shop, and if we pray aloud together, then we tend to hold each other accountable to only make the purchases we determined beforehand that we were going to make. It isn’t easy.
Patricia – -thanks for your comments and encouragement. I enjoyed visiting Pollywog Creek, esp with the beautiful pictures and the post telling about yourself.
I subscribed to your feed so I’ll be seeing you on Google Reader.