A conscious decision to love

Friday morning the horror of what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School was just breaking. We focused on all the horrible news as it came out. Reporters focused on the name of the shooter, the wrong name at first, and then his real name. Later on in the day the news of 3 being taken to the hospital was changed to reports on the children and teachers killed. By Saturday, the whole world knew how terrible it all turned out to be. Again, I won't type the shooters name. I just can't do it.

For now I want to point out this story about how average people became heroes and acted out of love.

Connecticut teachers were heroes in the face of death
By Ben Brumfield
CNN
December 18, 2012

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
NEW: "Remember these heroic women's names and forget the gunman's," a reader says
Teachers at Sandy Hook elementary acted heroically
Some were killed as they used their bodies to shield the children they taught
It will take more bravery to move on and heal

(CNN) -- Facing down a gunman, placing yourself in the path of flying bullets, forfeiting your life to protect innocents. It's a job description fitting for a soldier or police officer, but for a school teacher -- an elementary school teacher at that? What the teachers and principal at Sandy Hook Elementary School did for the children in their care could win a soldier in a war zone a Purple Heart.

Read more: 'This world is a better place because she has been in it'

But the soldier makes a conscious choice to face mortal danger when he or she enlists.

Sandy Hook's heroes did not.
click link above for more

An evil act pulled the trigger over and over again yet out of love, strangers showed up to see what they could do for this tiny community. Reporters managed to get through their own tears and heartache to cover the stories of the lives lost.

This showed what happens when we make a conscious decision to love while others decide to harm.

The children of Sandy Hook will heal and all the families grieving for the lives lost will find one day their pain is replaced with warm, loving memories but their acts of love will be remembered by the world for a very, very long time.