I've always been a slow processor. I can act in times of emergency by reflex, but with thought...I need to ruminate, churn over, work through words, thoughts, actions. We were in Colorado with very limited EVERYTHING. There's no cell service, no TVs in cabins. Internet access is limited and SLOW. That's the way it's suppose to be up there. I always call it "Mayberry" from the Rascall Flatts song. Without TV, cell phones, etc...people, kids, families interact. That night, late in the evening before I went to bed I got on Facebook for a moment...that's all you really can do...and see the events unfolding in Dallas. Immediately I panic and email my husband..."what's going on?" "Are any of your guys (police officers) on SMT involved?" He was back in Dallas and news apparently was conflicting and he has never been one for TV anyway. Late at night, while I slept...I got an email that Mike Smith was in surgery. I didn't see it until later the next day...later AFTER I got his call on the land line that Mike had passed away. I cannot tell you the sucker punch that it was.
We tried to crowd around my computer to try to get information. In that moment the world as I knew it tilted. The same thing happened when my dad died. It is surreal. The world goes on and you look at people's faces and want desperately for them to see that your world has just been rocked, but life goes on. It does...that's the way it should be. But, this was different. The world cannot go on the way it was. I cried out for Jesus to come. It was cowardly. My first instinct was for it just to be gone...it is too much for me to stomach.
Some background...I grew up in St. Louis. It was a very mixed community. My best friend, Heather Smith, was black. I didn't really get that. She was just my best friend. I can look back at pictures and see her skin color was different than mine but it didn't registrer back then. I really didn't know there was a difference until "Roots" came out on TV...the original version. I was in 6th grade and it was horrific to watch. For the most part nothing changed, however. The people I had relationships with...we stayed the same...they were my friends. But, the people that didnt' know me and I had no idea who they were hated me. I was threatened in the girl's bathroom by three black girls who had no clue who I was nor did I know them. For the first time in my life, I saw color. One of the saddest days.
So, I TRULY don't get people that hate someone else because there skin color is different. What in the world is wrong with them? That being said, I also am realizing that I don't get the experience of living in this society with skin of a different color. I see my world through my very myopic eyes. In my little corner there is no difference. I need to look outside my little corner and try to understand.
I have quiet time in God's Word's (my lifeblood) every morning. Those last mornings in Colorado, when my schedule was interrupted by the arrival of other people and our getting ready to leave, my quiet time stopped. Today I am "catching up" with the study I'm doing. And today I take comfort in what He reveals in His perfect timing. Thursday morning's reading showed me Jeremiah 22:16, "He defended the cause of the poor and needy, and so all went well. 'Is that what it means to know me?' declares the Lord. He's talking about Josiah's kingship, but that is what the Lord requires of us all...defending the cause of our brothers and sisters. And I thought I did it (again in my very MYOPIC view). We served places and efforted to help God be known to others. But it didn't go well. I think God is showing me my very myopic sight. I did it in comfort and in my own context without even reaching out to those I have relationship with to ask or have conversation with about their needs or their feelings.
In Friday's reading (read today) I wrote down Habakkuk 3:2, "Lord, I have heard of your fame; I stand in awe of your deeds, Lord. Repeat them in our day, in our time make them known; in wrath remember mercy." I thought again of how I want Jesus to come (selfish), but that our world is desperately sick and that we, His church, need to be on the move to show love. I thought of a song we use to sing in choir, "Make me an instrument of thy peace." The word's of the song..."Where there is hatred, let me sow love. Where there is injury,pardon. Doubt, faith. Despair, hope. Darkness, light. Sadness, joy. Pardon, faith, hope, light and joy. Love. Make me an instrument of thy peace, Lord...of THY PEACE, of THY PEACE." My myopic view needs to change. Maybe we all need a new pair of glasses to see. And...a hearing check. We are so quick to speak our mind that we don't listen to each other.
My world tilted. I pray everyone's world tilted. I pray we don't become complacent because, at this second, there is peace in our corner of the world. I pray God changes my heart because I don't get it, but I want to. I hope that if I am offensive, someone would love me enough to have that conversation with me so I can understand. It's overwhelming. The world needs to change...but the world starts with the circle I draw around myself and change everything inside of it so I can widen my circle and love the way God wants me to love...wants us to love each other.
