Students Turn to God in Wake of Virginia Shooting

"I'm really just poised and ready for anything. Many people have a delayed reaction," said Sills.

At a massive candlelight vigil Tuesday, female students knelt before Pastor Josh Akin as he sang "Amazing Grace."

"This is the Bible Belt, a lot of these young people already know the love of God," Akin said.

After the vigil, 22-year-old Adam Henry said he always prayed, but that this week his prayers had been "a little longer" than usual.

"You've got to keep your focus on faith," he said.

John Stremlau, associate director of peace programs at The Carter Center in Atlanta, said Americans will look to religion to help them cope with the massacre, as they have in dealing with past shocks like the Sept. 11 attacks.

"The terrible scale of this forces people to go back to their souls," said Stremlau in a telephone interview. Because the gunman was not motivated by religion, Stremlau said the nation might find it easier to unite.

"There is no sectarian aspect ... so we can seek solace in a common faith that there is still meaning out there."

While most students at Virginia Tech are Christian, the Jewish community also mourned the loss of friends and a beloved professor, Israeli Holocaust survivor Liviu Libresco.

"They are not so much looking for answers or philosophical insight, they're looking for a shoulder to cry on," Rabbi Yossel Kranz said of the students he's comforted. "That's really what we need to do right now. We need to mourn."