Could we please stop with the anti-black, anti-white, anti-cop, anti-President mindset?

We need to be anti-evil.

WE are not each other’s enemy. Yet we have all of our weapons drawn and pointed at each other while the hate, division, and destruction only grow more rampant. This makes our real enemy extremely happy.  We seem to be doing the work for him.

What if we were to stop aiming at each other and turn our weapons toward the true enemy of us all? “For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in heavenly places.” –Eph 6:12

God created us to be his family—together, unified.  This made Evil jealous and he started with a lie, which man followed and because of that sin, man was separated from God.

Evil divided the family. And he has been doing it ever since.

As the divided family multiplied and began to fill the earth, some settled in areas where the sun was harsh and their skin began to darken.  Others wound up in areas far from the Equator where the sun was less strong, and their skin lightened in response to less exposure.

Same family, different skin tones.

Look within your own home. Has Dad’s skin darkened from years of construction work?  Is Susie getting a really good tan going during this quarantine, while mom is looking a little pale as she balances all that is on her plate, leaving no time to relax by the pool?

Same family, different skin tones.

Do you hate Dad because he has darker skin?  Do you mistreat Susie during the summer months? Does Mom feel superior to all the rest? Of course not.  Because the heart of a family is the heart, and its color never changes.

But Evil is evil and will use anything to divide the family.   And so he did the same thing he originally did, and began to whisper lies that a person’s worth was based on the tone of his skin.  Again, people believed the lie and just as man originally moved about filling the earth, this lie moved about filling the heart.

And those hearts became hardened, getting more stone-like throughout the generations until his lie became their truth.  They had been deceived, and the deception blinded them to the oppression and mistreatment, and so they raised their kids to believe the same.

I am a child of the ’60s. These lies were given to us as the truth.  I remember a day my mom came to pick me up at school. I was in third grade and was having a great time with my dark-skinned friend Helen, going down the slide and romping on the playground.  On the way home my mom said I was not allowed to play with her. I did not understand, and although I did not stop hanging with Helen, I made sure we were not together when Mom would drive up.  Because it was clearly communicated that being friends with her was wrong.

I also remember spending a lot of time at the Hayden Burns Library in downtown Jacksonville as Mom did her genealogy research.  We often made the drive from Middleburg and it never failed that as we pulled onto the exit ramp of I-95 to get onto Union Street, I would hear the words “Lock your doors” echo in the car. Every time, just to enforce the idea that the rest of the world was safe, but as we approached the area of town where the people of color milled about, we needed to take extra caution.

As I watch the events unfolding across this country, I have shed many tears.  As I wept two nights ago seeing businesses burn and people being beaten and sprayed, I cried out to the Lord, “What can I do?”  And I heard, “What have you done?”  And there, with tears spilling on the carpet, I confessed and repented for every ugly word I’ve ever said and every racist joke I ever told. Most of it is so far removed from my present-day mindset that I don’t even recall the particulars. But I know that in my youthful ignorance and in my quest to be the funny one, the “N” word has passed over my lips. More than once.

It so grieves me to say that.  I think of the many brothers and sisters of color whom I now love and could not imagine my life without, and I cannot even put into words how it makes me feel to think that something I once uttered could cause them pain. I am so very sorry.

I said before that the lies harden the heart.  Therefore it is the truth that softens it.  It is the truth that will set you free—free from the Deceiver’s lies.   God’s promise in Ezekiel is that “I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.”

That heart of flesh allows you to see the entirety of man as one family.  And it is as that one family that we need to come together and aim our weapons at the true enemy, who is Satan and his powers of darkness. Because his main goal is to divide us. And he will use any tactic necessary to accomplish his goal. I have ministered to women of every shade, and I can tell you that the issues of abuse, abandonment, neglect, and rejection are prevalent in all races. Satan doesn’t care what color your skin is.

Unless he can use it as a weapon to create a gap.

As I read back over this, something else was brought to mind in answer to the “What have you done?” question.  A couple of years ago I was at a women’s conference for several area churches, when a sister of color—whom I’d never met before—stood up and relayed her story of having gone to a new, predominately white church where she was greeted with smiles and handshakes. But when she got home, she found a note in her purse that read, “Perhaps you would be more comfortable at another church.”  My fleshly heart was so pricked that it was all I could do not to stand up in the middle of the auditorium and apologize to her.  As God would have it, I met up with her in the lobby after that session, and while unable to speak coherently through my tears, I simply hugged her and whispered, “I am so sorry.”

When we know better, we do better.

We need to do better.

We need to do better because hearts of every color are breaking. The heart of a mom who fears for her son’s life whenever he leaves the house.  The heart of the policeman’s wife as he gets in his car to go toward the violence and chaos to uphold his pledge to serve and protect. The hearts of the couple who lost the business that they had spent their entire lives building.

And the heart of God who loves all of his children without exception.

We need to do better.  And it begins with looking within ourselves to the heart of the matter.

And what is that? What matters to the heart?  Maybe we should ask the one who created it.

Someone did ask Jesus that, and this was his reply:

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind…and love your neighbor as yourself.”

Hate and discord have driven us apart long enough.  I pray that we will allow love to bring us back to the family we were intended to be.

May God bless each and every one of you, and may his peace saturate you, as you demonstrate his love to your neighbor.

I grew up on five acres in the country.  When we first arrived, there was not a single thing on the land, but during my childhood some fences were erected. The property hosts a rather long driveway, and on each side, a pasture.  At the time we needed an enclosure to keep the horses and the cows contained. I was not more than six years old when the fences started going up, but I clearly remember helping to build them.  They worked very well at that time of my life, but now it is close to 50 years later and there hasn’t been a need to contain a beast in many years.  Yet the fence remained.

It was a field fence with posts every six feet or so, and wire stretched between the posts and nailed on.  Along the top was a row of barbed wire, a rather painful deterrent for anyone, or any thing, trying to get over it.

Recently I found myself dwelling on the property of my past and the longer I looked, the more I could see that there were things obstructing my view. So I began clearing the debris. Trees were pruned and brush was removed, overgrown flower beds were cleaned and new plants were sunk into the soil. It was really hard work.  And it took some time, as there was no rushing the process.  But over the months I began to see a clearer picture and was really enjoying the freedom of the open view.

But as I let my eyes scan over the property, something kept catching my eye.  Grass and weeds had grown in and around and through the wire of the fence, and no matter how close I mowed or how long I spent with the weed-eater, it was impossible to remove the unwanted creepers.  The weeds were the problem, but it was the fence that allowed them an opportunity to grow.

It was then that I realized that some of the barriers that had been constructed in my past no longer served a purpose, yet the structures remained, altering my view in the present.

They needed to come down.

And so the real work began. It was not possible to pry the nails from the posts, so each section of fencing had to be cut at every square on each end. It was tedious work.  Snipping the wire resulted in sharp pieces of metal just looking for something to gouge, and my flesh felt the stabbing pain of piercing over and over again.

In some places, the posts and the wire lifted rather easily out of the ground, but I found as I got closer to the beginning of the drive that the weeds had grown so thick that the fencing had actually been pulled under the ground.  It took a lot of intention and digging to free that buried part of the barricade, but I stuck with it, and before too long, I found myself pulling out the last piece of wire remaining. I was exhausted. I was exhilarated. And I am pretty sure I mixed a few tears with my sweat.

I walked back to my front porch, turned around to gaze at my new landscape and saw that my entire view had changed—it was free and unobstructed. And it was worth every bit of the sweat and tears to get that perspective.

That was two years ago, and to this day, no weeds grow along the path where the fence used to be. I would encourage you to take a look at your past, and see if you are mowing around fences that you no longer need. If your view of life is obstructed by the weeds of abuse, insecurity, abandonment, or the need to control, they will remain until you remove the thing to which they cling. These can be fences you’ve built, or ones that someone built for you. We tend to erect fences to keep things out, but others build them to keep you in. Regardless of who actually dug the post holes, fences that no longer serve a purpose need to be torn down, because their presence affects you and those around you more than you realize. The tools needed for the dismantling vary from confession to forgiveness to prayer and Freedom classes or small groups. If you need help taking that first step, reach out to me and we can navigate it together.

You know, that day that I pulled out that last piece of buried wire, I took a long well-deserved shower, had a bite to eat, and then once again made my way to the front porch to gaze at my view.  I wasn’t there but a minute when I noticed a rainbow at the end of the drive.

A rainbow.

God’s promise.

It is for freedom that Christ set you free – Gal 5:1

Sounds like a promise to me.

There was a storm coming.

I stood up and walked out onto the porch.  Leaves were strewn about and the rain was beginning to fall. Darkness engulfed me as the rain-swollen clouds obscured any hint of the usual nighttime sky. Soon the winds picked up and the rain pelted the ground more intensely. Trees were forced to bow as the swirling gusts attacked from all sides, and the blackness was broken only by rapid fire bolts of lightning exposing the quickly forming rivulets on the water soaked ground. Thunder ensued immediately, leaving no time to count between the flash and the rumble. The storm was upon me. Still, I stood.  And when the storm had passed, I was standing still.

I did not always rise to meet the storms, for I used to dwell in a place that had no covering.  When storms approached I had to hunker down inside and wait for the howling of the winds to cease, and only then could I move tentatively toward the window to assess the damage. Without covering, storms brought not only winds and rain, but also fear, worry, and anxiety.

Then I made a move.

And I now reside in a place that provides shelter in even the fiercest of storms. The comfort and peace that the covering provides has become essential, for even after the move, the storms still come. The transition did not stop the torrential rain, nor the buffeting of the winds, but I respond differently to the storms now. Peace has replaced the worry, and assurance has overcome the fear. All because I am now covered.

The storms of life are not always weather related. Often we can feel drenched by the pull of addiction or pelted by the actions of an unfaithful spouse. What about when unemployment strikes?  How does one remain standing in the midst of the howling winds of circumstance? By choosing to stand under the shelter of the Almighty.  Much like a mama bird protecting her young, He will cover you “and under his wings you will find refuge.” (Ps 91:4)  If you haven’t made the move, you probably won’t understand it—it’s one of those things you have to experience. But you won’t experience it if you don’t move.

Honestly, I was hesitant to move from my old house. I loved that house. I built that house. I lived there for the majority of my adult life and it was comfortable. And I wondered what a move would require of me.

I can only tell you that I didn’t know what I didn’t know. This move has been the best thing I’ve ever done and the move has provided so much more than it ever required.  And now that I am here, I can’t imagine ever going back.

Deciding to walk with God is just like that. We are hesitant to leave what we’ve gotten comfortable with and worry over what we think it will cost us. But once you make the move and experience the feeling of his covering during a storm, you will find that you cannot even imagine going back.  And instead of hiding from the squall, you rise to meet it. It was David’s experience in the fields where he defeated lions and bears that enabled him to stand against Goliath, and not just stand, but rise to encounter him.  The Bible tells us that David “ran to the battlefield to meet him.”  That is the posture of one who dwells in the shelter of the Most High.

Are you tired of hunkering down on your own and stressing over the storms of life?

Make a move.