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}