I was like you.  I got up early Monday morning and heard the news.  Las Vegas.  Shooting.  50+ killed.  500+ wounded/injured.  It took me a minute or two to actually process what I was seeing.  Even then, it was still hard to believe.  Even now, it’s still hard to digest.  Last night I mentioned to my wife that the Las Vegas shooting would probably be the topic for this week’s Pastor’s Heart, and then I said, “But what do I write?”  It’s all hard to put into words, isn’t it?  The emotions.  The questions – and lack of answers.  The sound of that ceaseless firing still chills my soul.  By now, we’ve all heard the many first-person accounts and the almost non-stop media coverage.  We’ve seen the social media posts, both real and fake, and are pretty well informed as to what happened.  However, the one thing we still don’t know is…. “Why?”  In all this, let’s be reminded that how we feel after a tragedy like this is nothing new.  You even see it in ancient Bible times.  Over and over in Scripture, God’s people lament the advance of wickedness.  I guess today, Psalm 94:3 says it best for me: “Lord, how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?”  Someone once said about this verse, “The sound ‘how long?’ is very akin to howling, as if it were one of the saddest of all the utterances in which misery bemoans itself.”  So true.  But in all the sadness, there is also a joy that the child of God can have.  I have a Heavenly Father whom I can trust.  A God who cares, strengthens, and bestows sustaining grace.  And not just in times of national tragedy like this one, but also in the personal battles we face, including the one you may be facing today.  The writer of Psalm 94 spends most of the passage crying out in pain at the advance of the wicked, but then he closes with this thought: “But the Lord is my defense; and my God is the rock of my refuge.”  And that’s the difference-maker!  I don’t have to have all the answers, because I have a God who does.  And I trust Him.  Explicitly.  So pray for all those affected by Las Vegas.  Grieve with them.  But also use this to point your heart and the hearts of others to the One, the only One, who can give us what we need in times like these.