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A Strand of Hope

 


On November 30, 2022, seven-year-old Athena Strand was at home in Paradise, Texas, when a FedEx contract delivery driver arrived with a package—Christmas presents Athena’s step-mom had ordered. What should have been an ordinary moment—a package delivery—turned into something unimaginable. Tanner Horner, the FedEx driver, kidnapped Athena and later murdered her, taking the life of a child who should have been safe at her own home. After years of court battles, Horner stood in court today and pled guilty to the charges. The reality of what happened to Athena has once again come to the surface, which forces us to confront something we often try to avoid: the presence of real, undeniable evil in the world.

There is no way to soften what happened, and there really is no reason to try to understand. Maybe it's because it happened so close to home, or maybe it's because I've known the Strand family my whole life. Maybe it's because I'm the mom of two girls, or maybe it's because the complete senselessness of it all—this tragedy touched me in a way that makes my stomach churn and my insides scream.

What Horner did was not a misunderstanding, a mistake, or a lapse in judgment. It was pure evil. Scripture does not shy away from the word evil, and neither should we. From the very beginning, the Bible tells us that sin entered the world and fractured everything God had made good. What we see in moments like this is the same brokenness that has existed since the fall of man. Tragedies like this one make that evil visible in a way that is both horrifying and undeniable. Jesus acknowledged this in John 16:33 when He said, “In this world you will have trouble.” He did not pretend that evil would be rare or distant. He told us plainly that evil would be a part of the world we live in.

And yet, when tragedies like this one happen, it feels wrong in a way that goes deeper than words. That sense of wrongness that swells up inside of us is a reminder that this is not how God meant the world to be. Scripture tells us in Romans 8:22 that “the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.” Harkening back to the original sin and punishment in Genesis, Paul tells us here that creation itself bears the weight of sin. We grieve the innocence lost to evil because something precious has been stolen, and we recognize—even if we cannot fully articulate it—that this is not the world we were created for.

Just because we are Christians, that doesn’t mean we ignore that grief or rush past it. We mourn because life matters. We mourn because a child’s life was taken in a way that should never happen. But Scripture also reminds us that our grief is not without hope. In 1 Thessalonians 4:13, we are told that we “do not grieve as others do who have no hope.” That does not mean we grieve less. It means we grieve differently. Our sorrow is real, but it is not final.

The hope we hold onto is not rooted in this world suddenly becoming safe or predictable. This world has shown us again and again that it is neither. Our hope is rooted in something beyond it. In Revelation 21:4, we are given a picture of what is to come, where God “will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore.” That promise does not erase what has happened here, but it does remind us that evil does not have the final say.

It is difficult to make sense of a tragedy like that of Athena Strand, and perhaps we are not meant to ever fully understand it. But we are meant to respond to it rightly. We are meant to recognize evil for what it is, to grieve deeply for what has been lost, and to place our hope where it cannot be shaken. This world is not our home; it never was, and it never should be. While we feel the weight of that truth in moments like this, we also hold onto the promise that there is something more—something better—that is not touched by the brokenness we see here.

Even in the midst of something so dark, there remains a strand of hope. Not because this world is good, but because God is.

 

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