Crisis & Tragedy
What happened to this program has become a story that belongs to other people now.
The investigators, the reporters, the social media commentary, the people who were not in this room when it happened and who are now generating opinions about it. The grief you are carrying has been turned into content. And that is a violation on top of a wound.
Read this passage slowly.
The Lord is my light and my salvation — whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life — of whom shall I be afraid?
Psalm 27:1 — NIVLet that sit for a second before you move.
The Lord is my stronghold. The stronghold is not a place of hiding — it is a place of security from which you can face what is outside without being destroyed by it. The psalmist is not claiming the threat is not real. He is claiming that the foundation is more stable than the threat, which changes what the threat can do to him.
The team navigating sustained external scrutiny after a tragedy needs exactly that: a foundation stable enough that the external narrative cannot reach the interior of what the team is. The media story about what happened to you is not the same as what actually happened to you. The investigation’s account of events is not the same as the lived experience of the people in this room. The social media commentary is not the same as the grief you are carrying. These can coexist without the external version replacing the internal one.
Here is what this team can control: the interior. The room. The relationships between the people in it. The decision about what you will and will not speak about publicly. The protection of each other from the pressure to perform grief or recovery for an external audience. The refusal to let the coverage determine the pace at which you process what happened.
What is outside this room does not get to tell this room what to feel or when to feel it. Protect the interior. That is within your power.
The media story about what happened to you is not the same as what actually happened to you. Don’t let the external narrative replace the interior one. Protect the room.
What boundaries does this team need to draw right now to protect each other from the external pressure? What are we not going to let in?
Practical and protective. The answers should produce specific, agreed-upon boundaries that the team holds together.
The interior of this room belongs to the people in it. Protect it.
This devotional assumes active media or investigative coverage. Coordinate with your institution’s communications office before delivering it to ensure it does not conflict with any required public statements.