Hello readers! I wanted to broach a difficult subject again. In light of the issues with the Dove Awards, TBN, and Kirk Franklin's speech, I wanted to share a blog I wrote back in August of this year. Our brothers and sisters of color see a very different America. If Christians don't stand up against these injustices and wrongs, who will? The words of my August blog still ring true! Racism has no place in the church or in this nation! I would ask all of us to examine our hearts and motives where this is concerned. I will not be silent on this issue. God is on the move to destroy the works of racism in this country! He will move with us or without us. I'd rather be on the God train barreling down on racism just as I am on the God train that's barreling through religious oppression of women right now as we speak.
America, I ask you to take the bad tasting medicine. Church, I ask you to take the bad tasting medicine. It will cure the patient and lance the wound. After we have dealt with our infected wound, we can heal. Jesus' love can heal us completely and make this ugliness whole again -both for our churches and our nation.
Please read this blog with an open heart to what God is doing in this nation. Renew your mind and turn from corrupt thinking. The time is now! The tide turns! God is on the move and no one can stop the Living God!
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Originally published on my website, August 13th, 2019
Hello everyone!
This blog was not easy to think about nor prepare for, much less write. However, after prayer and gathering my thoughts, I am presenting this to you today. I have not written this to argue nor criticize. I have not written this to trade insults. I am simply writing from my heart and more importantly, I want to show you the heart of God for this nation. I ask that you read this with an open heart and mind. If this writing changes anything, I want it to change your heart toward your fellow Americans of all races, creeds, and colors and to truly unify us behind what is right, noble and good. I want you to know we are all made in the divine image of God and no one can take that from us. Do not be afraid. Pain must come before healing. Jesus is the One who heals all wounds and He longs to heal the wound of racism in America. Let us begin.
I don’t think racism has ever really been fully acknowledged in America because it has been a wound that was easily hidden before now. Hiding wounds or infections of any kind on or in the human body is never a good idea so I’m not sure why American society thought it would be a good idea to hide the undercurrent and infection of racism for so long. As you can see, it did not help and worse, now the infection, as it does in the human body, is spilling out of the wound and into mainstream society - just as infection spills out of a wound in the body and into the bloodstream, the very life-blood of a person. Do you see the similarities? This is glaringly apparent in the bold actions taken by those of far-right groups such as the KKK, Aryan Nation, the National Socialist Movement, and now individuals such as El Paso shooter Patrick Crusius, Charlottesville attacker, James Alex Fields, and Charleston church shooter, Dylann Roof. These men and women have been duped by evil and have succumbed to its enticement of power – a power already proven short lived (hence the problem with lies). They have spilled out into the mainstream because the rest of us have ignored our wound. Wounds are never stagnant; they are always growing, and they will never remain hidden long. We have given evil an inch and it has taken 10 miles so to speak.
The wound of racism in this country has been underestimated, hushed, passed over and ignored. Now America has a full-blown infection. An infection even our president had to acknowledge last week. My heart is sad that he chose not to acknowledge it sooner and swiftly speak out against and condemn these groups long before now. Although I do not believe he is the sole cause of these groups coming to the mainstream nor the sole cause of individual actions, I believe his inaction is a symptom of the infection and his pride. His inaction speaks to the condition of the heart of America and perhaps in a way to his own – for I believe he too may have underestimated and undervalued the role racism has played in this country simply because it has not affected him. This is, unfortunately the case for many Americans, because racism has never directly affected them, they do not think it exists or they downplay its existence. This type of strategy does not help and only serves to make those it does affect feel even less understood or seen. It is all part of racism’s lie. My hope for our president as well as our other leaders of this nation and our own citizens is that we all will continue to speak out against this evil and take the stand that should have been taken in the highest office in the nation 3 years ago. I would ask our president to lay down his pride and do what is right! I would ask that he see through the eyes of others.
All of that said, and to borrow a phrase from a guest speaker I heard last week on CNN who spoke the truth, our sins are not all that different from anyone else’s in the world and I will add, they are just as ugly. Racism is not only an ugly wound; it is an ugly sin used to steal God’s divine image from His image bearers – you and me. Try as it might racism is an evil doomed to fail because the evil behind racism did not make us. We were all made by God in the likeness of his image. Any attempt by anyone or anything to tell us or an entire nation for that matter that there are people who are better than other people, smarter than other people or more “moral” than other people is attempting to steal the image of the One who made us and that my friends, is spiritual identity theft! Racism does just this! Those who believe these things are doing just that! They are trying to steal the preciousness of God’s image bearers of all races, creeds and colors! And guess what? They don’t get to do that! They did not make us so who are they to say who we are as a nation or even as individuals? These are created individuals, fellow human beings themselves who have lost sight of their own image bearing and who have traded it for the hope of power and god-like status of which they will never attain. Racism is the one of the biggest and oldest lies concocted to date! America, we don’t have to participate in this lie and I for one will not! I do not fear anyone I have written about in this blog in case you were wondering. My God’s got me! They do not own me; therefore, they can’t harm me, and have no power over me. They know this. Do not fear them.
America here is what we not only have to recognize, we must admit it to ourselves individually and collectively: racism is an ugly lie, an ugly sin, and an ugly wound on the body of the nation of the United States of America. We are not responsible for what generations before us have done, but we are responsible for what we do with the wound of racism now. God wants to heal that wound. He wants to excise it and heal it. He wants to show us that we are all His image bearers, and no one can steal that image from us! He wants to go into the darkest places of our nation’s history and our nation’s heart and redeem those places and make things right. The choice is up to us America. We must acknowledge what is there so it can be healed. As I said before, this may hurt for a short while, but healing comes with pain. Can you imagine how healthy American society would be without the ugly wound of racism? To put it in perspective, how healthy are you when you are infection free in your physical body? You are very healthy, and your body comes into a state of internal peace. When we let God heal our wound of racism America, we will come to a state of internal peace once again. However, if we continue to ignore our wound and let evil pit us against once another, we will be divided, and we will be conquered by that very evil. Are you okay with letting the spiritual infection of racism ravage this country? I’m not! I will continue to speak up and out as well as write as many times about this issues as necessary. I want all of America to know that God wants to heal us and heal our land so we can forgive and heal each other. Wouldn’t that be so much better than the rhetoric and the crazed ramblings of the racist thugs you have seen on tv in recent years? I know it would be! We are better and made for better things than racism! We are made to love as God is love! His love is so much better than hate! His love brings life to individuals and nations and it will bring life once again to ours.
I will leave you today with two verses to ponder, pray over, meditate over and put into practice in your daily dealings with your fellow Americans and in your own hearts:
2 Chronicles 7:14: …and if My people, who are called by My Name, humble themselves, and pray and seek (crave, require as a necessity) My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear [them] from Heaven, and forgive their sin and heal their land. (Repentance is key here!)
Zechariah 7:9-10; The Lord has said, “Dispense true justice and practice kindness and compassion, to each other; and do not oppress or exploit the widow or the fatherless, the stranger or the poor; and do not devise or even imagine evil in your hearts against one another.” (Self-explanatory) Love always, Elizabeth