All of God's Children

My beautiful black son hasn't yet experienced the dirt and pain of this world.
Sometimes, I can't write. The crushing burdens of this broken world feel like they're physically pushing down my words.
#icantbreathe

Because no paragraph can speak into the pain. Where do I begin? My voice feels false and weak and part of the problem, not the solution.
The problem is systemic and hidden and personal and overt all at once.
The problem is racism.
The problem is a word that everyone is acquainted with but no one wants to touch.
Not me. Them, sure, but certainly not me.
Couldn't be me.
But it is. It is me. It is you. It is all of us.
In Charleston, my brothers and sisters in Christ were shot in God's house because of the color of their skin.
This is not okay.
This pervasive culture of violence. The vile sickness of polarization. The bigoted stench of racism.
Not me. Them, sure, but certainly not me.
Couldn't be me.
But it is. It is me. It is you. It is all of us.
I want this world to be better. I want everyone to know the deep and high and wide love of a God who came to earth as the least of these to bare the burdens of the weight none of us could on our own.
Among the shards of hurt, I have to believe in a hope.
A hope in a Creator who says, I made her. I made him. I made you. I love you. I love him. I love you. She is worth everything. He is worth everything. You are worth everything. I love her so much I will enter into her suffering. I love him so much. I love you so much. I will make things clean. And you can join me.
Are you really ready to pay for love if it costs you everything?
I've been listening to Jon Foreman's new album The Wonderlands: Sunlight and when his song All of God's Children began playing, I couldn't stop listening.
Would you listen? Listen and pray and listen some more? Listen to our brothers and sisters who have been shouting for so long, waiting for someone to listen.
I want to say, not on my watch.
I believe in a God who cares down to the last detail -- down to the teeniest, tiniest sparrow. So I will care, too. I will use my voice and my hands and I will try. I will try to leave this world more united -- more woven into the grace of God's Kingdom -- than how I entered it. I need to do this for my children. My family. My brothers and sisters in Christ. My tiny place in the Kingdom.
Peace on Earth.
On Earth as it is in Heaven.
May we be reconcilers. May we be people worthy of the calling.
Not me. Them, sure, but certainly not me.
Couldn't be me.
But it is. It is me. It is you. It is all of us.