without shoes

One thing I put off talking about for a long time is the election.

Enough was going on without me throwing my two cents in, and everyone made out just fine.

I've waited. And things are calm (though it is the day before the inauguration), so maybe people can read this objectively, and without bias.

(Here's hoping...)

If you don't like the way it starts, maybe you should keep reading. If you like the way it starts, maybe you too should keep reading, with an open mind to hear what I have to say.

Who am I to say something?

In all honesty... no one. Just a girl with an opinion. Who cares, right?

But this isn't so much about my opinion as it is about what God is doing in my life and in my heart, and I guess I just wanted to share it.

He is teaching me to understand what it means to love...

not just from my own shoes, but from the shoes of others, and if He wears em', His shoes.


So with that said, I invite you to take off your shoes and step outside of yourself...

here are my two cents...







I was one of those.

One of those who were convinced that the world was coming to an end if Barack Obama was elected as the next President of the United States. Some people proudly admit that, others think it quietly to themselves.

I'll be the first to admit that I was a quiet believer in this thought around my "democratic," "homeless," or "African-American" friends.

I put quotations around their titles because that's not who they are. It may be part of who they are, but that title does not define them as a person, no more than "Caucasian," "middle-class," or "free spirited conservative" defines me as a person... as a child of God created in His very image.


Regardless of your political and/or spiritual views, continue to bear with me.


Though I say their titles do not define them, and that seems all good and "Christian" of me, I am guilty as defining them by their titles. For a period of time, when the future of our country was uncertain, and the race was on for history in the making, I separated myself from "them."

"Them," being Obama supporters.


I couldn't understand why people were making such a big deal out of Obama. It's like he had become this idol that people worshipped... literally, worshipped. His face was plastered across t-shirts, people cried at the sight of him, I think Oprah even fainted when he was elected.

To me, it just all seemed so... I'll be honest... sad.

To think that people would put that much hope in one man... a man... it was sad to me. To think that this one man was going to change the world, and save people from the situations and lifestyles in which they lived in, it was sad. And I'll be honest... scary.

Hope, faith, trust... in a man?

I couldn't understand why people were so blind... which is exactly what I called "them..." blind.



As time has gone by, and as I have dug deeper, whether it be into my own faith, or U.S. history in general, I have started to wonder if maybe it is I who have been blind.

Here me out republicans or evangelicals... not blinded in thinking that a man could ever be my salvation... I know where my hope lies... it lies in that of Jesus Christ... not Barack Obama, or John McCain. But maybe I (and you) have been blinded by equating the hope for an equal America with the hope for an abundant life.

The two are different, and I have realized that I want both. My hope lies in Christ... absolutely... and in that I hope, I hope we all get to experience abundant life, not just in this life, but in the next.

And abundant life (in this life) looks like this...

LOVE.

Taking off your own shoes, and seeing life from someone elses.

LOVE.

Walking barefoot, next to those whose feet are of another color.

LOVE.

Stepping outside of yourself, and loving others... who aren't like you, near you, nice to you, or even deserving of your love.

LOVE.

Giving your shoes to someone that has none, and not so that they may see life the way you do, but so that they may see that even someone from a different walk of life cares for them and sees them as worthy of love.

Just LOVE.

Only in loving others can we truly hope to experience abundant life.

Only in loving others can we truly hope for an equal America.

So this has made me wonder... over the past 232 years, have the people of our country loved each other? Have we treated others as we have wanted to be treated? Have we loved the way Christ loved?

In all honesty, no. We haven't. And I'm not even saying that all of a sudden when Obama becomes president we'll all start loving each other, I don't think it's that simple.

But I am saying that given the history of this country, and all it's people have been through, people of any and every color have every right to cry (without judgement) at the sight of an African American man becoming the 44th president of the United States of America.


And to take it deeper, not just an African American who can trace his roots back to someone in his blood line being from Africa, but an African American who was born of a Kenyan father.

And I'm not saying this makes him more African American (again, we're thinking equality here) than others, but for the purposes of helping you understand the depth of what is about to happen tomorrow, think about it...

born of a Kenyan father.

Some 70 years ago a little boy in Kenya, Africa was running around, probably with a stick and the rim of a bicycle wheel, who would one day have a son who would grow up to be the President of the United States.

WHAT?

Can you imagine?

Could he have?



I went to Africa this past summer and I listened to all of the children we were with tell us their dreams of becoming doctors, lawyers, pastors, and pilots. They had HUGE dreams. Bigger dreams than most American children could even begin to imagine while they are busy playing their play stations or game boys or whatever it is that's popular this year.

In between pushing the rim of a bicycle wheel with a stick, the Ugandan children would laugh and run up to us and tell us how they longed to see America, but more so how they longed to help their people.

Kids... this is kids saying this!

If one of those boys were to run up to me and tell me that he hoped to spark the mind of the next President of the United States... I honestly don't know if I could say I bet he could, or would.

I may smile. Hold him and hug him, laugh with him and love him. But then I would probably tuck his silly little dream, of this seemingly God forsaken continent ever being remotely close to that of mine, far away.

I have been blinded in seeing that nothing is impossible with God (Mark 9:23; Luke 17:6), and that all things work together for the good of those that love Him and are called according to His purpose (Romans 8:28).

God does not makes mistakes...

we do... but God works through them.




The voice of a little African boy who once longed to see poverty end, peace restored, and injustice come to an end in his own country, and even his whole continent, has sparked the mind of a man who will be the next President of the world's most powerful country... the United States of America.

WOW!



I once judged those that cried at the sight of Obama or the thought of him winning. I thought they had their priorities mixed up and had misplaced what and who they believed in. Until I realized... maybe they don't have their priorities mixed up at all, maybe I just don't understand.

I don't understand what it's like to be a minority. I don't know what it's like to be treated unfair because of the color of my skin. I don't understand what it's like to be asked to move to the back of the bus, nor do I know what it is like to be attacked or beaten simply for having a voice to stand up for and believe in something that is bigger than all of us... a love for all people, no matter what color, shape, size, or belief.

I do not know what it is like to walk in the shoes of those who have been mistreated because of their color... so how dare I say I don't understand why they are crying when history has been made and a dream that was spoken on August 28, 1963 has seeped through time and become a form of reality...

"I say to you today, my friends, so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification; one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today.

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together.

This is our hope. This is the faith that I go back to the South with. With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope. With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood. With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.

This will be the day when all of God's children will be able to sing with a new meaning, "My country, 'tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim's pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring."

And if America is to be a great nation this must become true. So let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops of New Hampshire. Let freedom ring from the mighty mountains of New York. Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania!

Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado!

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of California!

But not only that; let freedom ring from Stone Mountain of Georgia!

Let freedom ring from Lookout Mountain of Tennessee!

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of Mississippi. From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last! free at last! thank God Almighty, we are free at last!"

There is much I believe in and much I don't understand, and I admit my ignorance. But I refuse to sit in... to sit in my ignorance and assume that I know what it is like to cry out for physical freedom and hope for equality when equality as a white woman in this day and age is all I have ever known.


And so... politics aside, even as a McCain supporter this whole election, I have taken off my shoes for the purposes of loving you and loving others, and I welcome you, Mr. Barack Obama, to your new position as the President of the United States of America.

You and I may not see eye to eye on certain issues (maybe one day you can try on my shoes), but it's OK... I am proud to call you my president.

You have given people hope, including myself, for which I want to thank you.

And I pray that our hope in you and in a greater America will spark an even greater hope in the One who was, and is, and is to come!

Cause like it or not, He's coming...

and then and only then will we all be free at last! free at Last! thank God Almighty we will be free at last!