I wake up: it’s Sunday morning. My parents shuffle in and out of my room to get me out bed and into the shower. It’s time for church, just like every other Sunday I have been alive.

 

Church starts at 11 am but we like to go early and catch up on the weekend drama. We sit in the 5th pew from the back. It is routine.

 

I hear an unfamiliar sound and yet I know exactly what it is when I see stillness, blood, and terror enter my place of worship.

 

Though I was not at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs that day, the only effective form of empathy I am able to accomplish is to place myself in a pew on November 5th, 2017. 

 

No one can seem to put a face, emotion or feeling to what exactly happened that day; a day that the small town of 643 people lost 4% of their population.

 

26 year-old, Devin Patrick Kelly shot and killed 26 people in church on Sunday morning. The victims ranged from 17 months to 77 years. According to ABC News, Wilson County Sheriff, Joe D. Tackitt Jr. said there was “no way” to escape the church once the shooting started.

 

Governor Abbott called this the deadliest mass shooting in the state’s history.

 

After a week of TV trucks and funerals, grieving and questioning, Pastor of First Baptist Church, Frank Pomeroy stands in front of double the number of people in his town to give one of the most crucial sermons he will ever give.  

 

It has been one week since his church was attacked. It has been one week since his daughter was shot and killed in the place he proclaims his faith each and every Sunday. Now, a crowd of over 1,000 gathers inside a tent on the local baseball fields to hear what he is going to say.

 

“Oh, I am up!” Pomeroy jokes. Laughs scatter through the crowd. A voice from the congregation questions him, “I can still joke,” Pomeroy responds.

 

The laughs turned to roars of claps in response to the positive outlook Pomeroy had on the traumatic experience.

 

“We have the freedom to choose, and rather to choose darkness that the young man did that day, I say we choose life,” Pomeroy proclaims.

 

As the current figurehead of this community, Pomeroy rallies his troops in efforts to keep their faith and to keep fighting the good fight.

 

Senator John Cornyn offers words of solitude to understandably broken people.

“In these moments all we can do is pray, mourn and put our arms around one another until eventually we together take that first step forward,” Cornyn says.

 

A 313-mile drive from McKinney seemed like a step in the right direction for 24 year-old Alex Arnold. She decided she would come to Wilson County to offer condolences to the families of Sutherland Springs and try to make this situation feel real.

 

“There have been so many mass shootings in the past year that I almost feel immune to them. I came to Sutherland Springs because this devastation is not something that should feel normal,” Arnold says.

 

Data from Gun Violence Archive show that there have been a total of 317 mass shootings in 2017, compared to 483 mass shootings in 2016.  According to the FBI derived definition of a mass shooting is: FOUR or more shot and/or killed in a single event at the same general time and location, not including the shooter.

 

According to Time Magazine, men are responsible for 98% of mass shootings in the United States.

 

James Alan Fox, a criminologist at Northeastern University, told CNN "Men tend to use violence as an offensive weapon."

 

That is exactly what happened with Devin Patrick Kelly in that church. And in the midst of all of the aggression and violence that happened within Kelly’s mind, Pastor Pomeroy calls the people of Sutherland Spring to address the darkness but ultimately know that love is going to win.

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