In God's Hands

A reflection on life in this valley of tears

No matter how happy we seem or how well we handle this life, we are all exiles working our ways through the valley of the shadow of death, in hac lacrimarum valle.

Thirty-six hours prior to sitting down to write, a 20-year-old deranged man tried to kill the 45th and presumptive 47th President of the United States. In the process, he killed Corey Comperatore, a former fire chief and the best father who lived, according to his daughter who credits her father for being alive.

Corey Comperatore pushed his wife and daughter to the ground and shielded their bodies with his own. Perhaps that final act, after a lifetime of being a near-perfect husband, father, and citizens, led the Heavenly Host to say, “I’ve seen enough; we need Corey up here.” For his wife and daughters, the “valley of tears” is darker, deeper, and lonelier today. For Corey, his exile is over. Having given his life for others out of love, we have little doubt about his final destination.

“God works in mysterious ways,” my mother and grandmother would say. They said this, not when an apparent loss turned miraculously into an unexpected gain, but when we were in the pit of fear and worry. It was not an explanation for the change to the better but an admonition to trust in God. (For the record, I usually brushed off their supposedly healing words and went right on worrying, often more desperately having realized Mom and Grandma weren’t going to do anything to help.)

These lessons struck home at about 5:00 this morning when I saw a tweet from Dr. Taylor Marshall that read, "There is no way he worked alone.”

No. Of course not. I made the same assertion just hours after the assassination attempt. The shooter had help, and the most important help came from the demons that tortured him most of his life—the demons that surround us all, day and night, in this valley of tears. People who study such things refer to this as God’s permissive will—allowing the bad. Why does God allow the bad? Ultimately, to sanctify us and to punish the demons.

If that makes no sense to you, consider the female Secret Service agents assigned to Trump for Saturday’s rally. No matter how much training they had, no matter how much time they spent in the gym, they were too short to shielf the six-foot-four Trump and too weak to move his 230 pound body. Even with the help several shorter male USSS agents, Trump was able to stop twice on the way off the stage, once to retrieve his shoes and once to pump his fist in defiance while encouraging the crowd to “fight, fight, fight.”

Even accounting for the angle, this image demonstrates that Trump’s head and thorax were never fully covered by his protectors. And social media has criticized the USSS agents. But it’s not their fault—not the fault of the men and women in this photo, anyway. Megyn Kelly explained in another tweet on the subject.

“Women are not empowered,” she wrote, “by attaining jobs for which they are not qualified or well-suited.” She wrote this amidst a flurry of sarcastic attacks on one of the female USSS agents, a photo of whom was comical. Short, even for a woman, and frightened. When the shots rang out, the woman ducked beneath Trump’s podium instead of protecting her charge. Later, she was photographed holder her handgun as if it was the first time she’d ever handled a gun. She was scared.

This sad USSS agent experienced the permissive will of her superiors. According to reports, she failed the Secret Service training/screening test for “situational awareness,” the ability to discern good guy/bad guy in a high-risk situation. She failed. But she was hired and assigned, anyway, as part of the USSS’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion program that mandates quotas for women.

Her pain is an example of permissive will. It is not the desire for harm, but the only way to teach some people a lesson. Or, for those who able to achieve levels of sanctity, in the one case, or skill, on the earthy plane, a necessary challenge to reach what Eric Greitens calls those “outer limits of excellence.” Thus, Padre Pio was tortured by demons and by the devil himself throughout his life, as were many, many great saints.

In the process, God punishes demons through our overcoming their temptations and tortures.

Thomas Crooks, the shooter, failed to punish his demons, but imagine how painful for the demons is that iconic image of Trump, triumphantly pumping his fist and shouting “Fight!” to a crowd of thousands of lovers who, by the grace of God, not only didn’t panic; they didn’t leave. Trump recognized this himself when speaking to the New York Post:

‘A lot of places … you hear a single shot, everybody runs. Here there were many shots and they stayed," Trump said. "I love them. They are such great people."’

(BTW, if you were wondering what the theme of the Republican Convention this week would be, it will be “Love.”)

Crooks, then, did have help from God, Who stayed out of the way until last possible millisecond He called on Trump to look at the jumbotron, turning his brain out of the path of the oncoming bullet.

Image from The Gateway Pundit, Trump Says Last Millisecond Head Tilt to Read Chart on Illegal Immigration Stats Saved His Life (Slow-Motion Video)

In that millisecond, everything changed. Everything. History. Destiny. Everything.

First, the Democrats who were conspiring to push Joe Biden off the ticket informed the President they would end their efforts in light of the assassination attempt. They might claim their decision was for unity, but we all know the truth: no one wants to be the sacrificial lamb facing the seemingly invincible Trump. Joe Biden has made his bed and now must lie in it.

Next, President Trump has said he has thrown away his “humdinger” of a convention speech and is working on a new message of love. You will hear from Trump a vision for America that will remind you of Reagan.

Third, and perhaps most important, Trump showed both men and women what women want and need from men. This result negated my earlier warnings that women would rally to Joe Biden out of sympathy for his rapidly deteriorating mental state. I was right. Polls last week showed that, while 70 percent of men said they would vote for Trump, Biden actually gained women voters after the disastrous debate.

That all changed.

One Millennial feminist describes the phenomenon millions of women experienced on Saturday evening and Sunday morning. I present here in its entirety, emphases added:

stepfanie tyler

@wildbarestepf

graduated in 2012 w a degree in Women's Studies cried in 2016 when Trump got elected

lost touch w the dems somewhere around MeToo

discovered entrepreneurship updated my voter registration in 2018 but didn't tell anyone

told myself i was a 'single-issue-voting Centrist'

the last 6-12 months i've believed i was going to abstain from voting in the upcoming election because the options are equally terrible

but watching Trump survive an assassination attempt and act like a total fucking savage just shifted me into some strange, patriotic gear that my fancy-feminism-white-men-bad infected brain never showed me

like, the dude took a bullet and stood up with blood dripping down his face, and rallied a fucking crowd while fist pumping, yelling "FIGHT!"

sorry, but i'm voting for that.

and saying it out loud feels so freeing

(2012 stepfanie would be so pissed but that's okay because 2012 stepfanie didn't know shit)

(Link: https://x.com/wildbarestepf/status/1812349004530983364)

“Sorry, but I’m voting for that.”

Notice, Stepfanie (who hates capital letters) did not write “I am voting for Trump.” She said “I’m voting for that.”

What is that?

That is manhood. That is the lion protecting his pride. That is the warrior spitting out dirt and teeth to rise up and return fire. That is Rocky climbing up the ropes when his corner is yelling, “stay down.”

That is what women want, even though 50 years of feminist brainwashing told them they don’t need men.

Stepfanie is voting for something much larger than Trump. Expect a baby boom.

Elon Musk retweeted Stepfanie’s post, adding fire emojis.

Everything changed.

By my simple math, polls in the coming weeks could see a shift in women’s presidential preference representing 20 million women who formerly supported Biden (mostly out of sympathy) to Trump (mostly out of a biological need they cannot or will not articulate).

IN their book, The Fourth Turning, Neil Howe and William Strauss “prophesied” two distinct changes to the American culture as a result of the fourth turning, or Crisis era, which seems to have begun with the finanical collapse of 2007 and is nearing its “climax.” Both predictions seemed to have been horribly wrong as recently as 6:10 p.m. EDT, Saturday, 13 July 2024. Those predicted outcomes were:

1. A realigning election that gave one party near-unanimous power for a generation, and

2. restoration of traditional gender roles.

On the political realignment:

A national election will produce a sweeping political realignment, as one faction or coalition capitalizes on a new public demand for decisive action. Republicans, Democrats, or perhaps a new party will decisively win the long partisan tug-of-war, ending the era of split government that had lasted through four decades of Awakening and Unraveling. The winners will now have the power to pursue the more potent, less incrementalist agenda about which they had long dreamed and against which their adversaries had darkly warned. This new regime will enthrone itself for the duration of the Crisis.¹

Betting markets on Sunday moved to indicate a total Republican sweep, and even Democrats now admit a second Trump term is almost inevitable.

Stefanie shows that the gender-role definition is now ascendant. Soy boys are out; lions are in.

In his first statement after surviving the assassination attempt, President Trump wrote that he is alive only by the “will of God.” That’s true always and everywhere for everyone, but it was especially true for Donald Trump on Saturday evening. God works in mysterious ways.

Perhaps most mysterious, and I’ll leave you with this, Crooks fired his five rounds at exactly 6:11 p.m. local time. People sharper than me immediately associated that number, 6:11, with Paul’s letter to the Ephesians:

Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

—Ephesians 6:11

Good day.

1. Strauss, William; Howe, Neil. The Fourth Turning: What the Cycles of History Tell Us About America's Next Rendezvous with Destiny (p. 275). Crown. Kindle Edition.