We are not okay.

Despite my best efforts to be okay—despite my best efforts not to assign blame for the many ways we are not okay—I am overwhelmed with anger, frustration, and a deep, abiding sadness.

On September 14, 2026, I wrote these words:

Because women spend an extraordinary amount of time being told that our bodies are somehow both incredibly important and deeply inconvenient. Our bodies are celebrated when they are young, thin, fertile, beautiful, athletic, sexual, productive, and appropriately maternal. Yet, our bodies are not our own. Our bodies are owned and controlled by men, whether those men are family members, classmates, work colleagues, or politicians. Men need women’s bodies to create life, but we are also blamed for tempting men beyond their control and being punished for those times when men can’t control themselves.

Four days later, on September 18, The Cornell Daily Sun, Cornell University’s student newspaper, broke the story of a civil lawsuit filed by Jane Doe against seven fraternity members who allegedly assaulted her over the course of seven hours in 2024.

I did not need another example of the ways women’s bodies are treated as if they belong to, or are controlled by, men. I did not want another example, either. But there it was: one more reminder that what we say about women’s bodies is not abstract. The consequences are real. They are physical. They are devastating. And they are more common than we want to admit.

By the beginning of October, Secretary Pete Hegseth had announced that Americans would be able to watch Nidal Hasan’s execution by firing squad via livestream, adding the United States to the group of countries that perform public executions. Countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and North Korea. 

Meanwhile, at least ten Black Americans had reportedly been found hanged across the South in 2026—a number that may be closer to 24, according to reporting by Essence. And we still don’t really know what happened to Nolan Wells.

Women’s bodies are treated as public property. Black lives are subjected to violence that continues the country’s history of racial terror. State power makes a spectacle of death. And we are expected to absorb it all, process it all, and carry on as though none of it should shake us.

No. We are not okay.

We Americans are not okay. But we Christians are not okay, either.

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I want to share two brief glimpses of what not being okay looks like in my own life. Not because my experiences are equivalent to the violence described above, but because the distance between the headlines and our everyday lives is not nearly as great as we might like to believe.

In June, my second child tore four of the six ligaments in her left knee while playing soccer. Navigating the broken American healthcare system has added a significant amount of work to my already full life. But it has also given my daughter and me something precious: time alone together as we drive to and from doctors’ appointments and physical therapy.

A couple of weeks ago, we were on our way to physical therapy, chatting away as we listened to her new Spotify playlist. Then, without warning, her body stiffened. She stopped talking.

I glanced over to see what had happened. She was staring at the sticker in the back window of the truck that had just passed us.

There, in a big, bold white outline, was that clever, sick sticker of the State of Michigan holding a handgun.

“Mom,” she said quietly, “let him get past us.”

What I wanted to tell her was, You’re okay. You’re safe. It’s okay.

What I was screaming internally was something else entirely: Do you understand the harm you are doing to the people around you by advertising handguns? Is having a gun really worth the fear you are causing? Is your right to display a weapon more important than a child’s sense of safety?

I wanted to say all of that. I wanted to make the driver understand that his sticker was not just a joke or a statement or a harmless expression of personal freedom. It was a source of fear for my child.

Instead, I kept driving.

The following week, on yet another trip to physical therapy, my tenderhearted second child said, “Mom, I think [Sister] should go to [East Coast School].”

When I asked why she had chosen that school, she talked about the students who seemed most like her sister. Then she began listing the safety features that mattered to her: family nearby in case of an emergency, safety features on doors, established safe housing, and the fact that she herself felt safe there.

I listened as my daughter tried to imagine a future in which her sister would be safe. I heard her weighing the possibilities, considering the risks, thinking through the practical details of how to protect someone she loves from far away.

Then, just last week, she shared about the conversation she had in one of her classes about the reports coming out of Cornell University. She shared what she learned about physical safety. She shared about what her male classmates said and didn’t say. 

She is a 13-year-old child. She should be thinking about classes, friendships, new experiences, and all the possibilities that lie ahead. Instead, she is learning to assess danger. She is learning that safety is not something she can take for granted. She is learning how to protect herself and her classmates from school shooters. She is learning how to protect her body from unwanted, unwelcome touch. She is learning to make decisions about her family’s future with the possibility of violence always somewhere in the background.

And I am left wondering what it means that this is the work our children are doing.

What does it mean when a child sees a handgun sticker and instinctively asks her mother to let the truck get away? What does it mean when a child begins planning her sister’s future around the question of where she will be safest? What does it mean when she, herself, is constantly vigilant about her physical safety?

It means that something is wrong. Deeply, profoundly wrong.

And we cannot keep calling it normal.

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And this is where I keep coming back to Christianity.

What does it mean to follow Jesus in a country where children learn to fear guns, women’s bodies are treated as things to be controlled, Black Americans continue to die under circumstances that continue our history of racial terror, and human suffering can be turned into entertainment and called justice? And all of these happen more often than not at the hands of white, evangelical men?

What does it mean to follow Jesus when we defend our assumed rights more fiercely than we defend our neighbors? When we can recite our theological convictions but seem unable—or unwilling—to recognize the image of God in the people our politics leave vulnerable? 

I’m tired of this version of American evangelical Christianity that treats power as evidence of God’s favor, cruelty as strength, and compassion as weakness. I’m tired of a Christianity that can manufacture endless arguments for why we should not have to care about the suffering of other people and, instead, create more violence and harm in the name of Jesus. I’m tired of a Christianity that, instead of finding the common good and common ground to care about those who are suffering, we break and fracture relationships to protect our privilege and power. 

I cannot tell my daughters that everything is okay. 

I cannot promise them that the world will be safe, that they will be protected, or that Christians will work toward safety and security for all people, especially those who are vulnerable. I cannot assure them that the institutions they love and honor will in turn love and honor them. 

But I can teach them that fear is not the only possible response. We can refuse to become numb. We can tell the truth, stand against cruelty, and demand better of our leaders, our churches, our schools, and ourselves. Sometimes, following Jesus means standing against the very people who claim Jesus’ name.

We are not okay. 

The point of naming our brokenness is not to settle into despair. The point is to stop pretending that what is broken is whole and to stop blessing as Christian what is cruel, calling righteous what is violent, and confusing the preservation of our comfort with the work of God’s kingdom.

No, we are not okay.

And I refuse to believe that following Jesus means learning to live with a world that isn’t.