There before me, good and evil, standing side by side on the same site. It is such an incongruous sight that I have to look again even though everything in me wants to deny what I am seeing. I feel overwhelming grief as I stare at the large “Black Lives Matter” sign in the yard of the old downtown church.

Don’t they know? Then I realize there are only three possible explanations for what I see before me now. Agreement, acquiescence or ignorance. Agreement is too terrible to contemplate so I pray fervently that one of the latter explains the presence of the sign.

But first I must confess – I have put off writing this post for far too long. I further confess – that even though I write often about having courage, I myself have behaved as if I have none. I have acted cowardly rather than courageously. I encourage others not to remain silent, not to turn a blind eye and then I myself have remained silent. Until now.

But not today. As our cities continue to burn in the name of – of what? of justice? People are losing their livelihoods, our communities are war zones, lives are being lost and no one’s life is made better by any of this destruction, intimidation, vandalism and violence.

Black Lives Matter signs, banners, painted letters on our streets and spray painted graffiti on our churches, public buildings, monuments and places of business are everywhere. What does this mean? Black lives continue to be lost to murder, abortion, crime etc. everyday – we don’t see any outrage from BLM about that, just as we don’t see any lives being saved or living conditions being made better with the burning down of black owned and minority businesses and neighborhoods. So what is the desired outcome of the protests/riots?

I was having trouble connecting the obvious meaning of the name BLM with the obvious outcomes of their very public actions. Something is not making sense. Black lives are not being uplifted. Why not? Isn’t that BLM’s purpose?

Well, according to their website their agenda is something else entirely. It is to destroy our country and all those who look to her for freedom and protection and opportunity to live their lives in safety, peace and prosperity. They use words like disrupt and dismantle rather than destroy. I guess that sounds a little less threatening? But the intent is still clear.

What does BLM want to disrupt, dismantle, and destroy? The nuclear family, capitalism, democracy, freedom – pretty much our way of life. Why? BLM is Marxist in ideology. This is important to know because Marxism is atheistic at its core which is the opposite of the United States founding belief that we each have value because we have been “endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.”

Core beliefs have real world consequences. We have been witness to these consequences as we have watched the fires and the fallout, the demonstrations and the demolition taking place in cities across our country. With businesses boarded up and police presence decreased due to calls for defunding, with crime and murder rates rising, our streets continue to be filled with BLM demonstrators.

Why? Why are there BLM signs in store windows? Why are corporations giving BLM such large sums of money? Why is the NFL (and other sports organizations also) making sure to openly support BLM financially and with their public actions? Is it agreement? acquiescence? or ignorance?

Acquiescence is certainly rampant right now. We have all witnessed first hand what happens to those who don’t publicly support BLM. In this cancel culture it is to any business’s or to any individual’s detriment to not support BLM by signs, t-shirts, word of mouth and money. So I feel fear must be the dominant factor contributing to acquiescence. If a BLM sign can protect your business from bricks, bombs, burning and looting, who wouldn’t want to avail themselves of this simple solution? It beats the alternative. Unfortunately, tyrants are rarely placated for long. Tomorrow they will demand more.

Does fear account for all the support we are witnessing? I have to believe ignorance also plays a large part in what we witness in our streets and in the daily dialogue of our nation. People have not looked beyond the name of the organization. They have not gone to the website to learn about the origin of the organization or to see where their monetary donations might be going.

It is curious that the very churches which support BLM will not exist when events reach their logical conclusion. Under a Marxist regime there is no freedom of religion. There is no religion. After all, it was Karl Marx who called religion “the opiate of the masses” or “the opium of the people.” How ironic. So many churches are currently supporting an atheistic ideology. I wonder if ignorance is an acceptable excuse?

I have been especially surprised to watch the entire NFL, team by team, to take a knee, so to speak, to BLM. I have to believe it is the result of ignorance on their part. Here’s why. All those players are well paid athletes who have prospered as a result of the opportunities available to them in this country. Capitalism makes their salaries and their lifestyles possible. Free people with jobs, spend their hard earned money on game tickets and sports paraphernalia, (jerseys, hats etc.) and keep the NFL in business. How do the players think those big stadiums, arenas and other sports venues get built?

The answer would be capitalism. The same capitalism which BLM has vowed as a part of their platform to abolish. (players, were you never told – “don’t bite the hand that feeds you”?) I would think these players and the NFL organization would want to stand up for the country that allows them the freedom to conduct business and to pursue their personal, individual dreams. I would think the players would want to stand up for the hard working fans who wear their jerseys proudly, who have supported them in the past and are now being forced into silence and acquiescence while their businesses and their cities burn down around them.

But you, NFL players, are not standing up for your fans nor for your country. You are all taking a knee. Cowards. What are you afraid of? Cancel culture? A negative Facebook post? Do you really think there will be professional sports of any kind when our economy collapses? (have you looked at Venezuela lately?) Then I guess you all will be out of a job just like the rest of us regular, non-essential people.

I expected cowardice from the big corporations who felt they had to protect their images at any cost. And what a cost it is! That cost is selling out to an anti-capitalist organization. This makes no sense. So is this ignorance or acquiescence? It certainly could not be agreement because the ideology of BLM when implemented will mean the death of capitalism, which will mean the extinction of these corporations. So they are giving huge donations to an organization which is openly working to destroy them.

Which means it must be ignorance. Who helps their enemy bring them down? And so I must ask myself, what is my part? I love this country and do not want to see the freedoms we have enjoyed and perhaps taken for granted, disappear while I stand silently by. I am not in agreement and I am not ignorant, but has fear of offending kept me silent too long while I have waited for others to speak up? I was waiting for just one organization, just one NFL team, just one player to stand up and to speak out and to refuse to pay the protection bribe, to refuse to pledge allegiance to the bully terrorizing us in our own backyards.

But there has been only silence. We have such a history of courage as a country and as individuals. When did we become a nation of cowards? Corporations, churches, sports franchises are all actively supporting the very movement that desires to tear them down, to tear down our country and to replace our private property with community property and state control of every aspect of our lives. (that’s what Marxism is) Getting us to hate our country is just a means to their end. When patriotism is popular and we are united, those that would destroy us from within don’t stand a chance.

The choice is ours with BLM. We can agree, we can acquiesce, we can remain ignorant by turning a blind eye and a deaf ear or we can speak out for the nation who has provided us protection and freedom, even with all her flaws, far above what others experience around the globe.

We are not the nation who invented slavery but we are the nation who abolished it. And we did so at a very high cost of human life. (the Civil War) So many have given their lives that this nation might live. They would not want us to give up on her, to go down in silence, without a fight. America is worth fighting for. Somehow, so many seem to have forgotten that fact. Instead, we prefer to fight each other.

I am reminded of the story of the young boy and the rattlesnake. Maybe you know it too? The rattlesnake asks the boy to carry him up the mountain so he can enjoy the sun but the boy is afraid of being bitten and of dying as a result. The snake assures the boy this will not happen, giving the boy his promise. So the boy picks up the rattlesnake and they journey together up the mountain and then back to the snake’s home. The boy keeps the snake safe and protected the entire time. As the boy sets the snake down, the snake bites him. Surprised, the boy cries out, “why did you do that?” The snake’s reply? “You knew what I was when you picked me up.”

Hindsight is always so perfectly clear. But it always comes too late. Will we claim ignorance as a nation? as a people? say we had no idea? say we did not know? we did not know who they were, those who tore our country down right before our eyes, while proclaiming justice, equality and freedom – even as they unjustly desecrated our cities, took lives and our liberties, suppressing any voices of dissent, as we, with our silence gave consent – to freedoms fought for in long ago years, to now be surrendered without a tear, without a whimper of regret, believing this the only path to peace? with this oppression will the violence cease?

Tonight my prayer would be these words from the Gettysburg Address, ” . . . that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain – that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

this legacy of freedom and democracy is ours to preserve and to pass on or ours to loose . . .

let us pray for that new birth of freedom

“Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance.” (Psalm 33:12)

sincerely, Grace Day

Out of the mouths of babes, so to speak, comes today’s universally asked question. It is a question all of us ask, if not out loud then to ourselves silently, as we suffer while wondering what is the answer to our question? I confess – it is a question I ask often enough myself. But hearing this question that we all grapple with, asked by a six year old, in the words of a six year old, gave it a clarity that highlighted just how universally asked this question is and has been down through the centuries of human existence.

“When will it stop hurting?”, this young child asked his Grammi. Isn’t that what we all want to know? When will the pain go away? When will it stop hurting for me? Sometimes our physical pain does go away, it does stop. But for many, chronic physical pain is part of daily life. It does not stop. It does not go away.

Then there is the even more prevalent emotional pain that afflicts us all. This pain is as unrelenting as physical pain, but for some reason its impact on our lives and on our overall well being is much greater than mere physical pain. Emotional pain, those deep hurts, wounds, rejections, fears, anxieties, depressions, loneliness, words and deeds of others that have hurt our hearts and caused us grief unspeakable – these are the burdens emotional pain bestows on us and leaves us to carry on our own.

And so I find myself asking along with my young friend, “When will it stop hurting?” I want to believe that it will and I want a date to put on my calendar, so that I can mark off the days until the day when there will be no more pain arrives. That is a day worth waiting for – but I need to believe that it is coming. I need to believe that life without pain is possible.

I don’t think I am alone in this longing to be released from pain. Look at what Romans 8:19-23 tells me,

“The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”

So all of creation is asking this same question right along with me, “When will it stop hurting?” or “How much longer do we have to suffer?” Creation is groaning as it waits to be liberated from its bondage to decay just as you and I groan inwardly as we wait for the redemption of our bodies. (after all, we too, are a part of creation)

When will the pain stop? In John 16:33, Jesus tells us “In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Ok, that sounds like not any time soon will the hurt be disappearing from my daily life or any of our daily lives. Not in this world anyway. 1 Peter 1:6-7 sheds some light on why this is so.

“In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith – of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire – may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.”

So my grief in all kinds of trials is only for a little while? Just how long is a little while anyway? Time is definitely in the eye of the beholder. 1 Peter 3:8 tells me,

“But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day.”

So how do I hang on, waiting for it to stop hurting, in the meantime? 2 Corinthians 4:16-18 encourages me with these words,

“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”

There’s a reason it hasn’t stopped hurting yet. I am being renewed and prepared for an eternal glory that I can’t even imagine nor understand. I just have to take my Heavenly Father at His word. It’s called trust and trust requires faith. Then I read in James 1:2-4 these words,

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.”

I guess with me it’s taking a little longer to develop in me perseverance and to bring me to the mature and complete stage. I am a work in progress and it is a painful process! But my Heavenly Father does promise me this in 1 Peter 5:10,

“And the God of all grace, who called you (me) to His eternal glory in Christ, after you (I) have suffered a little while, will Himself restore you (me) and make you (me) strong, firm and steadfast.”

There’s that a little while again, but there is definitely something to look forward to – a time when the hurt, the pain will stop for me and for you, too. Revelation 21:1-4 describes what is coming, what we are looking forward to in these words,

“Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, . . . And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.’ ”

When will it stop hurting? When God comes to dwell with us and wipes away all our tears and abolishes all pain and death. When He who is seated on the throne says, “I am making everything new!” (Revelation 21:5) That’s when!

Until then I have His promise from Psalm 121:5-8,

“The Lord watches over you – the Lord is your shade at your right hand; the sun will not harm you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all harm – He will watch over your life; the Lord will watch over your coming and going both now and forevermore.”

sincerely, Grace Day