The four of us nestled under one fluffy blanket to watch Selma. My daughter and son were in the 5th and 2nd grades respectively and part of me struggled with the notion that their hearts might be too young and tender to wrestle with the ugliness of racism. But I needed them to know the reality of the world we live in and the role they can play in creating a better future.
Less than thirty minutes after the movie began, my sobbing girl stood up and with trembling voice said, “Mommy, I’m sorry. I know this is important, but can I please go to my room? It’s too much for me. I can’t . . . I just . . . I just can’t handle the hate.”
Her words ring in my heart and ears still today. Especially today. These past few months have been wrought with hate. Sister against sister in an election year filled with fear, confusion and bitterness. It’s 2016, but our TVs and devices bring us images that seem to belong in another time or dimension. Violence by police. Violence against police. Bombs at festivals. Gunshots fired in schools, meeting places, and concerts. Potshots spewed from podiums and social media platforms.
Racism. Sexism. Radicalism. It screams at us from all directions.
I can’t handle the hate.
I won’t allow hate an inch of space inside my heart, but I feel its heaviness as surely as I can feel a ray of sun seep through my skin. Hate festers all around us every single day. Hate is obvious to spot when it’s brash and brazen and shows up loud with fists and fits flying wildly. But hate can also be sneaky. Sometimes there are spores of hatred that spread so subtly through speech, tradition, and every day annoyances that they marinate unnoticed.
Rudeness. Anger. Jealousy. Fear. They all are born from sin and they can all lead to hatred whether we recognize that or not. We first hate something that we see in ourselves, our surroundings, or in others before hurling insults, throwing punches, or silently shunning.
So what do we do when we can’t handle the hate?
Tuck ourselves away in an indulgence? Muzzle our mouths so we won’t say something wrong? Fool ourselves into believing that it’s not really that bad? Focus instead on a problem we think is even worse?
No. Although those are usually the go-to’s when hate slams against our lives even when we desperately want to keep it far away.
The truth is as obvious as it is difficult. When we cannot handle the hate, we must be agents of love. We must do all the things hate cannot.
Hate can’t be handled by humans any more than a zookeeper can handle a ravenous lion. Hate scorched soil the second Satan separated himself from heaven, and only Jesus’ return will eradicate it. But responding to hate with love is the only way we can loosen its stranglehold on humanity. And when I talk about love, I’m not referring to some light and airy feeling that looks like a kissy-face emoji and sounds like a Richard Marx ballad. I’m referring to an emotion so fierce and tenacious that it leads to action.
Love’s no wimp.
Love defends the defenseless without a hint of defensiveness. Love disables bad habits and illuminates better choices. Love stands up for the afflicted. Love cooks for the hungry. Love weeps with the mourners. Love listens to the disheartened. Love steps away from the keyboard instead of typing an angry retort. Love bandages the bleeding. Love mends the broken. And unlike hate, love is eternal.
Challenge: During this season of intense bitterness and hate, what is one thing that you can do that will show love to someone who is not being loving toward you?
Leave a CommentDear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. The one who does not love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent His One and Only Son into the world so that we might live through Him. Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Dear friends, if God loved us in this way, we also must love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God remains in us and His love is perfected in us. {1 John 4: 7-12}
Bev @ Walking Well With God says
Angela,
Yes, indeed, these are difficult times. Unfortunately BOTH political candidates are reflections of society and how it has progressively gone down hill. Their ugliness is a reflection of our society’s ugliness. Just flip through the tv channels and see if you can find anything “pure” and “lovely” to let into your mind. The only One worth reflecting right now is Christ. Now, more than ever, Christians need to rise up – not with ugly chants – but , as you said, with love. Our world needs a third option and that is God and Jesus, His Son. The scripture you quoted says it so well, “The one who does not love does not know God.” We need to pray for those who persecute us and be bold in telling the world why we have the hope that is in us. We need to introduce people to a different way…to go the route of love vs. hate. If we don’t lead the way…who will? Great thought provoking post!
Blessings,
Bev xx
Penny says
Bev,
Bev,
As a Canadian I fully empathize with what you are all facing. I pray wisdom & love will prevail.
Blessings to you all,
I hope you have a good day,
Penny
Penny
Penny says
Whoops there is only one of me.
Penny
Bev @ Walking Well With God says
LOL….but you are so wonderful…two of you would be especially nice!! Having spent some wonderful time in Canada this year, my husband and I think sometimes our best bet would be to move there – especially the way our country is going right now – but no place is perfect (especially not this side of Heaven)!
Blessings sweet friend,
Bev xo
Elizabeth says
Last week, I was feeling less than loving toward a fellow mother at my daughter’s PreK. Later, I prayed for her and for opportunity to connect with her. (This is not typical of me, and anyway our kids arent friends, so I was pretty sure I was off the hook.) Then yesterday, my daughter excitedly announced after school, “I made a new friend today!” Yes. Sigh. I was not off the hook.
We are never off the hook. And when we are open to relationships–even begrudgingly so, apparently!!!–God can use our willingness to build bridges. Love is not optional.
Thanks for these beautiful and challenging words.
Pearl @ Look Up Sometimes says
Love this! Thanks for sharing your story. May it have a joyful ending. 🙂
Britta says
Thank you for this message! This is a good word spoken aptly, like golden apples in silver bowl. What an encouragement because we can feel so helpless looking at all the evil and hatred swirling around us. God asks two things of us: to love Him and to love our neighbor. Thank you for reminding us…it is so easy to get distracted from this.
erica says
thank you for the gentle and encouraging reminder to love to the fullest. if any reading this comment would hold me in prayer today and throughout this week, i’d greatly appreciate it.
Pearl @ Look Up Sometimes says
Dear Jesus, please help Erica — and all of us — to love You and love people. It’s simple to say and anything but to live out! Help us be like You, as I heard someone last night say, to be a master at using the moments well. Please bless Erica and make her successful in following You completely in her moments today. Amen.
Penny says
Erica,
You are in my prayers for whatever struggles you are faced with.
Penny
Diane Bailey says
Angela,
Thank you for being bold and saying this outloud. Government cannot stop the hate, or the laws made to control sin. It is us, being who we are – light in the darkness, a city set on a hill. The days ahead of us seem unusually cruel and dark to us, but they are the same sin that has been here. It’s new generation feeling and seeing its effect on the ones created in God’s image.
Thank you for encouraging us to be light in the darkness.
Naomi says
Beautifully stated. Hate has infected our local community, and while I’ve been approaching every situation with love, the weight of the hate is staggering.
Thank you for this well timed encouragement!
Michele Morin says
Your little girl’s response melts my heart. Let’s never get so accustomed to hate that we can watch it and not grieve.
Pearl @ Look Up Sometimes says
Angela, thank you for this timely message. Thank you for the reminder that real love isn’t wimpy (regardless of how it’s perceived). I have a ring with the words “love conquers everything” that I wear frequently as a reminder of this very thing.
Penny says
Angela,
Thank-you for touching on this. Hate is harsh, so final. For this reason I’ve tried to teach my children not to.
I experienced first hand at the playground recently how much it stings from a child I’d only met once. She announced she hated me, with more to follow. The other children asked her to stop. I left stunned, I’d never experienced this before. I wasn’t even sure if she meant it or not she was only a little girl. I prayed her heart would flow with kindness, and when I saw her again she apologized. That made a huge difference to me and made my son feel better. If we all could learn to refrain from harshness I believe we’d be in a much happier place.
Blessings to all for a good day,
Penny
Sue Neal says
What a tmely message. Often the news, or newsfeed on Facebook leaves me,with tears streaming down my face. A heart so heavy I can barely breathe. With physical issues of my own, obe thing I know I can do is pray. When my hands allow I oray and watch God create beauty thru my hands and crochet a hat fir a chemo patient or lap blanket for a Vwteran, or tiny blanket for a NICU baby. God can use us all to spread His love!
Penny says
Sue,
You exemplify beauty, thank-you for the love you share with others.
Have a blessed day,
Penny
Sonya La McCllough says
LOVE THIS WORK …. even in our brown skin … we too must be agents of love at all times, in all places … for Christ in us is the hope of glory.
Joy Thacker says
Angela you are spot on! 🙂 Love is no wimp. We must stand up and stand strong as our culture is fragmenting and does not know the power and grace of God’s love. To love in the face of hate is the face of Jesus. Thank you for your beautiful and challenging words. 🙂
Rebecca L Jones says
Love is no wimp, agreed. And children nor adults should be able to stand hate. I said before to people that this election was not about men versus women but right and wrong. I have read and heard the good old boy things that will make Christians vote for Trump, and the arrogance and hate toward Hillary Clinton. Love will not let you be ignorant of His ways and thoughts that are higher. We have to forgive, if she wins, I pray that the Lord makes her a Deborah over America, and she was a mother to Israel. I may not agree with everything they stand for but we are to pray for leaders to have peace.
rachel swanson says
This is so good and just what I needed to hear! Thank you. “Love steps away from the keyboard instead of typing an angry retort.” Brilliant.
Beth Williams says
Angela,
These are such perilous times. I have prayed often that God would come back and take us to our true home. I’m so very tired of all the hate, mistrust, etc. going on in the world now. It seems like it’s getting worse by the day! We need to shower this world with God’s love! The best thing we can do for one another is pray. Pray for those who persecute you. We can also give people smiles and nice waves. God can use that to change & soften their hearts and bring about some peace. Pray hard about this election. As I see it there is no real good choice. Pray for your leaders and see who God puts in control of this country!
Blessings 🙂
Brenda says
Thank you for reminding us of the need to walk in love. It is so easy to become distracted on a daily basis (a tactic of the enemy to cause our focus to be misplaced). The love of God has been shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. He knew that left to our own devices, we would operate in the flesh, but thanks to the power of The Holy Spirit, we can know His love and, choose to share that love with others. I love how The Lord brings songs to our remembrance to minister to us. The last two weeks I’ve had the song “The Lord Thy God” rising up in my spirit. It says, “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty, so mighty. And I saw Him high and lifted up with power and grace and authority. And He shall reign in the midst of thee forever and ever. Amen”. What beautiful words to hold onto that no matter our problems, or all the issues surrounding us, that He is in the midst of us, He’s mighty, so mighty. Thank you for sharing and lighting the fire in us to be more like Him.
Dawn Camp says
Such good words, friend!
Kristi says
Love all of this so much. Thank you for all these reminders.
Sandy says
I was reminded at our women’s bible study last week that I can be as hateful and unloving as our presidential candidates but God loves us all the same!! I have pledged to pray the candidates we have before us through their campaign. Tough decision that I must remind myself everyday!!
Sandy
Michele says
I needed this, so badly. It has been a very bad few days in my world. Without getting into unnecessary details, I’ve felt the heaviness of hate, like what’s talked about here, and it has been wretched.
Thank you for these words. They came at just the right moment.
Theresa says
Love is so much stronger and endures longer than hate. Thanks for the reminder.