the judge

"But when a righteous man turns away from his righteousness and commits iniquity and does the same abominable things that the wicked man does, shall he live? None of the righteous deeds which he has done shall be remembered; for the treachery of which he is guilty and the sin he has committed, he shall die." (Ezekiel 18:24)

"He was an outstanding student. He was an awarded student, someone who was revered by faculty and students alike. We had no problems and no indications at all that he would engage in such activities," Donald Grady,  the Northern Illinois University Police Chief, said during the press conference.He was referring to 27-year-old Steven Kazmierczak who was identified as the gunman on Thursday's shooting spree at NIU in Dekalb, Illinois.

It was all over the news. Another shooting incident in US University. And according to CBS new, it was the 7th shooting incident that happened all over America in a month's time. All of these incidents happened in different campuses and all of the gunmen were students.

What went wrong? Since the Virginia Tech mayhem in April of 2007, we have witnessed how a human being can transform into something inhuman. And It was contradictory that most of these killers were portrayed as good people and were not thought of as capable of doing such horrifying crime. But something must have gone wrong. Is it drug? Is it family problem? Is it low self-esteem? Is it frustration? Is it all of the above?

A couple of days ago, CBS News also reported a woman who was given a parole. She is a felon who committed multiple crimes. She served her sentence and now ready to face the world anew with new hopes, new beginning, new aspirations. According to her, she has changed and was sorry for all the bad things that she did in the past. She now wants to lead a new life.

Life turns the way we wanted or expected it to be based on the choices we make. God gave us the freedom to choose the path we wanted to take or the will power to make the right decisions presented to us. If sometimes we took the wrong path... God hopes that we find our way back to Him. He gives us the chance to take the right path but it is up to us to make the right decision.

Both the gunman and the paroled woman made their choices and faced the consequences of the choices they made. The good man who turned into a killer and the felon who turned into a good woman, they both have their past before them and made a turning point how they wanted to be remembered in the future to come.

We are here not to judge. We are here to learn the lessons of their lives. We are here to look into our own lives. We are here to make a decision which path to take. And whatever decision we make, we will be remembered for it. How do you want to be remembered?