Instead of writing more about patience in this five-Sunday month, I want to pause and breathe.
I want to stop and dwell for a little while on the greatest virtue of all.
I want to exhale hatred and fear and angst and rage and grief.
And I want to inhale healing and hope and peace and trust.
I want to love.
I have read that George Floyd was my brother. I know he was already my brother in a general human sense. But I have read that he was a Christ-follower like me.
So that makes him my brother twice over. And while he was a stranger to me in this life, I will be honored to embrace him in Heaven one day.
And even though he was a stranger to me, a man I “wouldn’t know from Adam” on the street while he was living, I would never wish suffering upon another–let alone suffering a death like he did.
God, have mercy.
My heart grieves over every act of mercilessness. Every act of harming. Every act of dehumanization. Every act of cruel destruction.
And when any such act seems to be fueled by discrimination, it does more than “add insult to injury.” It slathers a despicable coating over a heep of seething evil.
Where is love? That greatest virtue…?
True love is in God’s heart that still beats with the desire for our redemption and our best. And it is in our hearts when we are attune to Him.
I realize in this moment that I don’t really want to be colorblind. Because if I were, I wouldn’t be able to appreciate and revel in glorious diversity and the gifts that all of us bring to the banquet of humanity.
I don’t want to be colorblind. Instead, I want to have x-ray vision of the Spirit that looks at other people and automatically sees the soul. I want to want the best for the stranger beside me, no matter what. And if they should become less of a stranger to me, I want to want their best even more.
Yes, let this be the heart of such love in me. And let that heart, that vision, do some small part today to melt the despicable coating and drive back the seething evil.
May I…may we…be conduits for the love and peace that leads to unity.
How God must smile when He sees us unified. And how He must weep when He sees us divided and hurting one another. My heart aches for His heartache.
I want to close these thoughts with a very short, untitled poem in Mr. Floyd’s honor:
When we watched your struggle —
Your murder, your dying —
We saw your skin tone,
Screamed at compounded injustice.
But God saw your soul
And wept at your choking
And ran to embrace you,
To welcome you home.
Rest now, earlier than you planned to,
Peacefully, in the arms of the One
Who has always loved you.
While here we remain and struggle…
To look past each other’s shells…
To love.