I first traveled by the Badlands and saw part of them from the highway in my early 20s. Linda and I later took our kids there a couple of times in our family western adventures. The kids loved climbing the rocky cliffs, with Linda calling up at them, “Don’t go so high!” They did anyway.

But seeing the Badlands from the air is entirely different from wandering around in them or driving through.

Erika Kirk’s public granting of forgiveness to her husband’s killer caught the nation’s attention. It was a beautiful display of the Gospel and reminded me of something I witnessed a few years ago that brought me to tears.

I was watching an 18-year-old, Brandt, exemplifying Jesus on my computer screen. His older brother, Botham, was his best friend. But that best friend’s life was quickly ended by the careless actions of Amber Guyger…

When I was in college, a friend of mine was working the night shift at a small gas station/convenience store by himself. At around 1 a.m., a man came in wearing a ski mask and holding a gun, demanding that he open the cash register. My friend, whose name was Jim, thought it was me playing a prank. So he started laughing and said, “Yeah right, Scott. Take the ski mask off.”

The guy yelled, “My name isn’t Scott. Now, OPEN THE CASH REGISTER!”

I spoke with a young woman in our church who rode the bus to school with Charlie Kirk every morning. She’s not the only one in our church who knew him personally.

I think all of us were shocked at the atrocity of his assassination. I was at the airport and about to board the flight home when news came that he had been shot. People all over the airport were talking about it. Someone showed me a video of him being hit, and it was something I wish I could unsee. It wasn’t until I arrived at O’Hare that I learned he did not survive.

If you put a vulture in a 6’x8’ pen that is open on top, the bird—despite its ability to fly—would be a prisoner. Vultures learn to fly by running 10 to 12 feet and lifting off. They are fully capable of taking off in a short span, they just don’t know it.

The bats you may see flying around at night need either an uneven surface or a slight ledge to get airborne. If one is placed on the floor or flat ground, all it can do is shuffle around helplessly. If you lift it just a bit, it takes off like a flash.

My grandpa was in Africa as a volunteer carpenter for a Lutheran mission. He went because he loved to hunt, and it was his dream to hunt big game in Kenya. One day on a hunt, he walked by a tree with a spitting cobra in it, lying in wait for prey. These cobras attack by spitting venom into the eyes of their potential prey to blind them.

Grandpa was spit in the eyes.