In a news week consumed with the ugly convulsions in a Senate race in Alabama, my mind keeps returning to the red roses in a tiny church in Texas.

Have you seen the images?

The members of First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, turned the site of a madman’s massacre in their little sanctuary into a moving memorial to the 26 churchgoers cut down during morning worship on Nov. 5.

Our current cover story in WORLD features our 2017 Daniel of the Year: Joni Eareckson Tada. You can read more here about the remarkable life she’s led as a quadriplegic and disabilities advocate since her diving accident 50 years ago.

Earlier this year, I spent time shadowing Joni at church, work, and home. Here are a few takeaways from that experience:

AGOURA HILLS, Calif.—In the midnight darkness of a Baltimore hospital in 1967, Joni Eareckson begged God to heal her. Weeks earlier, the 17-year-old girl had broken her neck after diving into unexpectedly shallow waters in the Chesapeake Bay.

The result: paralysis from the shoulders down.

The teenager endured grueling surgery and lay strapped onto a Stryker frame designed to allow nurses to turn patients with spinal cord injuries. Her weight dropped to 80 pounds. One friend sobbed at the sight.

About Whirled Views: Readers often ask me how they can help people they learn about in WORLD or other places. I often reply: “You can pray for them.” Sometimes I get an earnest response: “Yes, I’ll pray for them. But what can I do?”

I love when readers want to respond by donating money or volunteering. When we can make suggestions, we do. But I stick by my first reply too: Prayer really is a deeply important kind of front-lines help.

On a Sunday night in Las Vegas, the seasons of life described in the book of Ecclesiastes compressed into a matter of moments for thousands of stunned concertgoers.

A time to dance became a time to mourn. A time to laugh was a time to weep. And for 58 men and women born a few decades ago, a festive evening was suddenly, tragically a time to die.

Hours after Hurricane Harvey deluged Houston with catastrophic flooding, some storm watchers blamed an unseen culprit for the storm’s massive destruction: global warming.

More caustically, they heaped personal responsibility for the tragic loss of life and property on anyone skeptical that climate change caused the storm or made it so severe.

CLARKSTON, Ga., and AUGUSTA, Ga.—On a steamy Sunday morning in northern Georgia, joggers toting water bottles huff up a steep hill next to a massive granite rock soaring 800 feet into the humid Georgia air.

Stone Mountain Park is one of Georgia’s most visited tourist attractions, with its hiking, camping, ropes courses, railroad, water attractions, dinosaur-related exhibits, and one other notable display: the largest Confederate monument in the country.