Shawna Herring Blog

This is one of my favorite images from my Haiti trip.  Whenever I would go somewhere with Pastor Gary, kids would come out of nowhere to jump and yell, wave and laugh…they all chanted, “Pastor Gary!”  It melted my heart.  It reminded me of the fact that we are all wired to yearn for the love of a father.  It makes us feel complete, whole, worthy, valued….significant.   Many of us don’t have this love modeled in an earthly father.  We are at an all time low for fatherless children in this Nation and it affects everything.  It affects our self worth and esteem…how we see ourselves.  I am overcome with emotion when I see a man extend love towards children that are not his own.  A man who has a Father’s Heart when in the presence of children…because it can absolutely change the world.  We are all meant to have value placed in us by our fathers.  The good news is that even if you have not recieved this from your earthly father, it is available and life changing through your Heavenly Father.  He wants to adopt you and give you a hope and a future.  He wants to heal every hurt that you have experienced and give you a new identity…in Him.  This makes me smile.    REALLY BIG.

So today we have a new President.  The post was intended to be about that but as I was looking for a photo to use, I started to think about healing that comes from the Father.  Obama is bringing a lot of healing to the African American people of this nation and I’m really happy about that.  I’ve been reading a book called, “What’s so Amazing About Grace?” and it has a lot to do with the power of forgiveness.  Today I read a lot about Martin Luther King and the power to rise above unfair circumstances and offer forgiveness and love….to not play into the idea of revenge simply becuase you realize that it never makes things right, it never settles the score, it only keeps the wheel of bitterness turning.  King was a radical revolutionary.  He knew the power of love and he lived his life in light of such.   MLK had a sea of hatred and racism trying to engulf his every move and he implemented a very sophisticated strategy of war fought with grace, not gunpowder.  He opposed policies, not personalitites.  Most important, he countered violence with nonviolence, and hatred with love.  “Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred,” he exhorted his follerwers.  “We must not allow our creative protest to degenerate into physical violence.  Again and again, we must rise to the magestic heights of meeting physical force with soul force.”

King’s associate Andrew Young remembers those turbulent days as a time when they sought to save “black men’s bodies and white men’s souls.”  Their real goal, King said, was not to defeat the white man but to “awaken a sense of shame within the oppressor and challenge his false sense of superiority….The end is reconcilitation, the end is redemption, the end is the creation of the beloved community.”

It’s true of those who live above fear, hate, racism and prejudice.  Where love is extended to all, oven those who are not worthy.  That was MLK’s heart, it’s the Father in Heaven’s Heart and it’s the only action that will overcome hatred and revenge.  God Bless Barack Obama.  God bless America.  Thank you Jesus, for enduring the cross for my sake.  For offering Forgiveness and Redemption to all.