“His names will be: Amazing Counselor, Strong God, Eternal Father, Prince of Wholeness. His ruling authority will grow, and there’ll be no limits to the wholeness he brings.” Isaiah 9:7 of The Message Bible
I felt my heart weep when I saw the clip of George Floyd pressed to the ground by police as he uttered the words, “I can’t breathe.”
If you don’t know who George Floyd is, a simple Google search would pull up the incident. This man died as a result of the injuries he sustained during that clip and it sent a shockwave throughout our nation.
This isn’t the first time something like this has happened, but something was different about this time. It stirred a lot of feelings inside of me that I couldn’t seem to shake.
As a Believer in Christ, my mind began to consider the principles Jesus taught, and how I was seeing the opposite happening in my society. It angered me.
As an African American woman, it was as if a deep wound reopened in my soul; the plight of racism and oppression were heavy on my heart. It sickened me.
As a teacher of school age children, I found myself at that juncture of considering if I was doing my due diligence to truly help prepare my students for the world–a world filled with much injustice and seemingly not enough time to tell about it all. It grieved me.
This situation, coincidentally (or perhaps not at all) with Mr. Floyd, happened during the COVID-19 pandemic…and truth be told, it all felt like too much.
I realized that what was going on wasn’t just a black issue. It was a humanity issue. And our nation has been crying out, for hundreds of years, for justice to be served.
So, I began to think about what God wanted ME to do. What was my specific part to play in the darkness I was seeing around me?
& I think this is a question that’s echoing throughout our communities right now. So many are seeing, feeling, and beginning to understand what justice is, how it’s been sought after in our society for much too long, and we’re looking for answers.
I believe, though, that instead of looking around us, we should be considering that we ourselves are actually the answers.
You, me, we. We are the answer to our nation’s injustice! In whatever position we play in our society, we have been given, by God, the ability to institute and establish justice in areas where it’s needed.
