Why, God?

BLACKSBURG, VA. — The tissue boxes were neatly laid on every wooden pew, but there were none on the pulpit, so Tommy McDearis wiped his tears away with the back of his hand.

The pastor of Blacksburg Baptist Church also served as a police chaplain, and after last week's shootings at Virginia Tech, he had to tell 20 families that their children were gone. He had to console the homicide detectives and SWAT team members who saw the blood-soaked classrooms, the wounded and the dead.

Through it all, McDearis told his congregation Sunday morning, he struggled to control his emotions — to understand how God could let something so vile happen to so many good people.

"I was sitting at the Inn at Virginia Tech, waiting for the next broken family to come in, and a woman pulled my badge … and said, you know it seems like God could have done better," McDearis said. "I wanted to be able to argue with that woman. But the truth of the matter was that I knew just what that woman was feeling."