My Jumbled Thoughts

I'm just sick about the shooting at Virginia Tech. As the story unfolds, it seems like there are more questions, not more answers. This kid had so much background, he was basically marked as being "at risk." I can foresee many people demanding to know why "something" wasn't done about this young man (in the same way that so many people are now demanding to know why "something" wasn't done to warn people/lockdown the campus after the initial shooting).
We all know that hindsight is 20/20. I really feel that finding fault with the way things were handled is probably just a coping mechanism that many people will use to try and establish some sort of control as they process this absolutely out-of-control situation.
I wish there were an easy answer, a way to make sense of this tragedy. My heart hurts for this young man who felt so alone, so hurt, so dark, that this seemed like a way to ease his pain. My heart aches for the young people who have been brought face to face with this senseless violence; for all of our society's fixation with violent "entertainment", we are, for the most part, pretty insulated from the reality of raw death. My heart is crying with the families who have lost their loved ones. The parents who sent their bright, promising, children off to prepare for their future only to have their future cut short.

As a christian, what should my response be? How can I make sure that I am not merely "stirred" but truly "changed?" The first place I feel God leading me to inspect is my interaction with my own set of "troubled youth." Our teenager and his friends are facing things that I simply can't understand--and I didn't necessarily have a bed of roses youth myself. I asked my teenage son recently if any of his friends lived with both parents. He couldn't' think of any. Most of the kids we have hanging around here live with grandparents, step-parents, or like us, Uncles or Aunts. These kids face violence at school, they face the fact that they are essentially less important than their biological parents' addictions, they face a culture that tells them on one hand that they are "all that" and their own best friend, yet on the other hand raises up an impossible standard of beauty and brilliance. We have consciously opened up our hearts and home to these crazy kids, but I am often out of patience and ready to throw in the towel. I get frustrated with their bad attitudes and their self-importance. I want to "tell it like it is" and let them know that their 17 year old crisis are patently ridiculous and to just wait until real life hits them in the face.
I think God is telling me that I don't get to decide for other people what constitutes a crisis. I have no idea where the line is between teenage angst and true mental breakdown for each particular kid. What I can do is love on them, show them that in their whole turbulent world, Mr. Jeff and Mrs. Jody are there, that they can count on us to believe in them, set fair boundaries, and show lots of mercy.

What if this kid had just one person to turn to, one person tried to understand him and saw him as a person, not just a duty? We can not control the decisions that someone else makes, I'm in no way saying that there weren't people in this guy's life that tried to help... I just want to be sure that when God places someone in my path, no matter how odd or distasteful they are, I am doing everything in my power to "stand in the gap."