Evelyn Dijkhaus, age 9, Mike Hill, age 61, William Kinney, age 9, Katherine Coons,

age 60, Cynthia Peake, age 61, Halley Scruggs, age 9, these are the names of the victims

of the tragic shooting that took place at Covenant School in Green Hills, Tennessee, in Nashville,

Tennessee, just about four miles from where my family and I live, and today's podcast

is going to sound a little bit different.

As you guys know, I release a podcast every Wednesday, and I had one already to go and

had finished it and was ready to release it on Wednesday, but the shooting took place

on Monday morning and everything changed and it just didn't feel appropriate to put

out that particular episode, so we're going to hold that for next week, and instead today

I just thought I'd come on and share with you my thoughts, my perspective from somebody

who lives in this community, who loves this community, and is heartbroken to see what

took place, and you know, this is going to sound really selfish, but I think it's

true human nature that like you can hear about things on the news and it feels a million

miles away, you know, you hear about it shooting somewhere else and you're still, you're

hurting for those people, but there's distance, you know, and that's why when they talk

about something hitting close to home, it becomes real, you know, gun violence and the

possibility of, you know, a parent waking up on a Monday morning and dropping their

kid off at school, and then that night, that bedroom being empty at night, it's just

unthinkable, unimaginable, and it's hit close to home.

So I didn't even start today's episode the way I normally would, welcome to the podcast,

I'm your host, Matthew West, and the West family is grieving, and we've been crying and

praying for those members of our community who've lost, parents who've lost a child,

...