God's Sovereignty Displayed in Aurora Shooting

"For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb" (Psalm 139:13).

Petra Anderson was at the Century Aurora 16 theater watching The Dark Knight Rises when James Holmes entered through an emergency exit door and opened fire. Petra was hit in the head with a shotgun blast.

Blogger Brad Strait relates the incident and tells how a unique birth defect saved young Petra's life:

Shooting victim Petra Anderson

It seems as if the bullet traveled through Petra's brain without hitting any significant brain areas. The doctor explains that Petra's brain has had from birth a small "defect" in it. It is a tiny channel of fluid running through her skull, like a tiny vein through marble, or a small hole in an oak board, winding from front to rear. Only a CAT scan would catch it, and Petra would have never noticed it.

But in Petra's case, the shotgun buck shot, maybe even the size used for deer hunting, enters her brain from the exact point of this defect. Like a marble through a small tube, the defect channels the bullet from Petra's nose through her brain. It turns slightly several times, and comes to rest at the rear of her brain. And in the process, the bullet misses all the vital areas of the brain. In many ways, it almost misses the brain itself. Like a giant BB though a straw created in Petra's brain before she was born, it follows the route of the defect. It is channeled in the least harmful way. A millimeter in any direction and the channel is missed. The brain is destroyed. Evil wins a round.

Strait does not come at this from a Reformed perspective, chalking it up to what he calls "prevenient grace: God working ahead of time for a particular event in the future." Still, it is an amazing story.