Reflecting on Monday's horrific shootings at Virginia Tech and our own campus shooting just two weeks ago, I find that incidents like these stir in us deeply ingrained grief and confusion over how a good God would allow such terrible tragedies to play out.

Some of us are filled with compassion and attend candlelight services, collect funds for the victims' families and wear black ribbons on our collars. We rush to Facebook.com and write kind letters to VT students. We don't even know anyone involved, but we still mourn on behalf of our country, asking, "Where was God?"

Others of us get angry and try to assign blame. Why didn't VT's administration close down the campus after the first shooting? Why do guns exist in the first place? We go through lists of people who had the potential to stop the incident and wonder how a student like this still managed to slip through the cracks. There were so many opportunities that so many people failed to take, and we continue to ask, "Where was God?"

Others do not even consider the tragedy. We would offer our condolences, if we had someone in particular to offer them to, but we're unattached. It's not that we're heartless, but there is too much pain in the world to mourn every tragedy. Life is hell and then you die, as my father often says, and some just leave it at that. But we still ask, "Where was God?"

Still other people experience the horror, and it fuels even more anger and frustration. How could a just God allow this man to get a gun? If God exists, he isn't worth pursuing. Humans are still alone and finite, no matter how big he is. And they too ask, "Where was God?"

There are several reasons why people believe God allows horrors like this to happen. Some reasons are simple; others rest at the bottom of a boiling pot of theology and still others are swallowed like a jagged pill. If you accept the existence of a loving God, you'll have to wrestle with these possibilities and decide on your own. For all we know, it could be both the flowery answer and the jagged pill.

But what if, for a moment among all this grief, we stopped talking about where we couldn't find God and started considering the places God can be seen? It's as though we are trying to find a single molecule of oxygen in an ocean of water, even though it's there in every drop and bubble. It's often too difficult to see, but is that the oxygen we even seek? If we only bobbed our heads above the surface, we'd find the fresh air to breathe.

God was in the two buildings the gunman attacked. He saw the chains come off the doors, and gave courage to the officers who stormed the hallways. He was in the quick response that stopped the shooter from using all of his rounds. God was there when the shooter didn't resist the police but simply gave up and shot himself. He was with the students who jumped out of the windows, only a few of them suffered injuries.

God is in the aftermath. He kept the shooter from fulfilling his bomb threat. He is with the investigators who are quickly unraveling the details of the case and with the professors who were willing to share what type of person he was. He is with the families who lost parents, sons and daughters. He is the voice calling for some to give generously, and he speaks in the silence of our prayers.

God was at the candlelight vigil, where students came to mourn and seek comfort. When they chanted, he heard their voices. When they cried, he formed their tears. When they reached for comfort, he had a friend ready to reach back.

God is speaking to each and every one of us who may know a troubled person like Cho Seung-Hui was. He is telling us it could have taken only one person willing to reach out, someone who was willing to try until he or she got a response. And when we think of how difficult and frustrating it is to reach out to people who soak in their own hatred and self-pity, God reminds us that he designed us to love even people who seem unlovable. Only through our love of others will we come to understand his love for us and our world.

We ask, "Where was God?" But it should be obvious: He's been here the whole time.

Reach columnist Celeste Flint at opinion@thedaily.washington.edu.