I was one of the 19 percent. Nineteen percent of voting white
evangelical Christians did not choose Donald J. Trump to be president.
And, like most non-Trump supporters, I spent the first days after the
election in grief and fear over what a Trump America would look like.
The morning after the election, I was shocked the sun still shone, my
infant son still grinned at me nearly bursting with joy, and the blue
sky dared be so blue.
As a Christian woman, I felt betrayed. I couldn’t bring myself to
attend church that Sunday out of fear the service would be
business-as-usual. People of color were suddenly tweeting out of their
wounds, such as African American sister Yolanda Pierce’s tweet: “White
evangelicals: you’ve decisively proven that you love your whiteness more
than you love your black & brown brothers & sisters in Christ.”
(Yolanda Pierce @YNPierce Nov 8).
I feared being tainted by association.
As a writer, I needed to write it all out. I wanted to add my voice
to the cacophony of noise rising in volume. Like the catharsis of
screaming into an on-coming train, I wanted my voice to be swallowed by
the anger, fear and grief of the voices on the internet.
But I read some words¹ that morning from a wise old king that tempered my impulse.
“Tremble [with anger or fear], and do not sin;
Meditate [speak] in your heart upon your bed, and be still.
Selah [Pause].
I needed to pause, breathe and exhale. If I had spoken, it would have
been out of hate, not love. Anger, not activism. Bitterness, not hope.
My lament was too raw, too tender.
I desperately wanted to do something. The next words I read suggested this paradox:
Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And trust in the Lord.
In other words: before doing, first die. What are the sacrifices of
righteousness? Love. Joy. Peace. Patience. Kindness. Goodness.
Faithfulness. Gentleness. Self-Control. This response conflicts with
every impulse, feeling and emotion I have right now. I don’t want to
love a man who uses fear as a motivator and hate as power’s fuel. And I
don’t want to trust a God who would allow evil to win.
But I will put down my sword. Loving right now is counter-cultural, revolutionary, even.
Sounds like Someone else I know.
And so I trust not in our president, Congress, the media, the
hundreds of articles debating fact and fiction or even in myself. I lean
on the One who spoke everything out of nothing. The One who whispered
words into my womb and molded a little life. The One who brings down
nations and kingdoms, but also coaxes the butterfly out of its
chrysalis. The One who outwitted death, sadness, evil and despair with
pure, exquisite, soul-washing love.
We raise high the banner words spoken by Desmund Tutu: “We are a resurrection people.” In death, we live on...
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