The main thing to remember when you wash a bullet-proof vest is to neutralize the Velcro. Match up the flaps and stick those strips together. Check the back where the metal plate goes. Meticulously line up the interlocking pairs of connectors, or they’ll snag everything in your load. Most wives and mothers of peace officers can tell you all about this. It’s something they usually learn the hard way.

I know I did. Two men who call me “Mom” and another who calls me “Honey” keep Kevlar in their closets. Of those three, one also has a Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department Charger parked in his garage. It’s been a sobering week.

There’s a line in Ecclesiastes that says, “It is better to go to the house of mourning than to the house of feasting.” This is a time to be in the house of mourning. I will not wax long with words when families are in the depths of a sorrow that I cannot begin to comprehend.

Instead, I will keep my column short and focus on praying. Like you, I will pray for families who have lost their providers, protectors, confidants, and companions, and have been left with a lifetime of “what ifs.”

I will also pray for the men who will stand behind the pulpits as coming funerals are conducted. Many in the black sea of well-wishers need to hear you cut to the chase and turn the volume up on hard words: Time is short. Consider your own eternity.

And as news reporters dot the aisles and the cameras roll, may Christ be exalted, and the words of William Cory Godbolt be drowned out.

Kim Henderson is a freelance writer. Contact her at kimhenderson319@gmail.com.