Healing begins with…
Healing starts with forgiveness.
Honestly, how could I not forgive after the number of times The Lord God has forgiven me? But I would be lying if I did not admit this is hard. Personally, before I give forgiveness, I want people to take responsibility and be accountable. I want them to recognize how frightfully easy it was to choose to follow racism.
The wax museum in Baltimore holds a figure of a pregnant woman who was lynched (hung), shot and set on fire. Her womb was split open and when the child fell to the ground, one of the lynchers stepped on the baby’s head. Emmett Till, a 14-year-old boy. was beaten to death by grown white men for whistling at a white woman. His lifeless body was discarded to a body of water. His mother held an open casket funeral. People who came to see were forever changed by the disfigured and unidentifiable face of a young boy. Six-year-old, tiny and innocent, Ruby Bridges, escorted by armed military, walked through a venomous white crowd into an all-white elementary school. Her first day at school began with white adults shouting, “kill her”. They should have shouted “kill her because she wants an equal education.”
We went on from such events as a country, but we never healed. We advanced technologically and economically but our hearts were still unaccepting of different skin colors. We joked. We laughed. We fought. And then we learned to live in this world. But we never healed.
The absence of healing is why it was easy for some Christians to follow racist leadership. They thought there were issues bigger than someone hating someone for skin color. They chose to ignore lies and divisive leadership. Some of those leaders called themselves Christians. But in truth, they were racist individuals in Christian clothing, and well-meaning Christians followed because of the label “Christian”.
As you read this, some of you may be offended in hearing me say this, but this is where I ask you to check your own heart. Most offense comes from a sense that there is a bit of self-truth in what offends you.
And now, after a torrential year fueled with hate in a country that never healed, God asks me to forgive my Christian brothers and sisters. My big red fairness button glows with indignation. “But God,” it pulses, ”this is not fair. They do not get to reveal their true hearts and then walk around talking forgiveness without being held accountable or responsible.” The fact is most people think forgiveness means the absence of accountability and responsibility. It does not.
As Christians, we need to remember David sought forgiveness for the awful thing he did in taking another man’s wife. Forgiveness came but it was not without accountably and responsibility on his end.
But, in all this, I love the Lord first. And he has slapped me with his truth…I cannot say I love him but hate my Christian brother and sister. (1 John 4:20) In defense and pride, I tell the Lord, “My sin is not as bad as theirs.” Then he reminds me the essence of what causes me to sin is as bad as what causes my Christian brother and sister to sin. My level of selfishness it exactly like theirs. While our actions differ, our selfishness is still the same. And the Lord God sees both – the sin and the action. Yet when we repent, he forgives. He forgives me over and over.
My Prayer: So here I am. I repent for my attitude against my Christian brothers and sisters. I repent for the things I've said and done. I forgive and I pray for them now to repent of racism which may knowingly and unknowingly reside in their hearts. I pray for them to repent and forgive. As I wrote this and prayed and as you, the reader, read this, I totally get it if you're not where I am. Please understand, I'm not running around in a joyful state of forgiveness. I do not like needing to forgive, but I ascribe to forgiveness so that the offender does not keep me in a prison of hurt. They walk around free. They do not care or are not aware of the impact of their actions, while I remain imprisoned. That’s another thing that’s not fair.
What helps me is to focus on the truth: God is always bigger than people. Through my love and obedience to him, he empowers me to love when I shouldn't be able to. I’m not perfect at it, but I’m not supposed to be. I’m supposed to lean on him and trust him through it.
It hurt me to see some of the Christian brothers and sisters I fellowship with choose politics over loving people. When some of them sided with racist leadership what it translated to me was that they were okay with people who see no problem in cutting open a woman's womb and stepping on a baby's head. That hurt me to the core because it felt like my Christian brother and sister agreed with some sort of deprivation because of skin color. But…oh but…tearfully but…God tells me to forgive. I am here in these words doing so.
As my reader, and especially my Christian reader, I'm asking you to repent if your heart has some seed of hate based on skin color. I’m asking you to be responsible and accountable for your actions and words said during this time. I’m asking you to forgive. Because if we don’t, we cannot heal, and we will find ourselves so easily slipping into accepting racism as normal again.