Growing up, I was a child that legitimately liked everything. I liked every type of toy, and believed that they all needed to be played with because, well, toy equality. Since my dad was a huge Star Wars and superhero nerd, I grew up playing with Star Wars action figures (my favorite were the Ewoks) and X-Men figurines while rocking my Spiderman pajamas and C3-PO slippers. Now while I was a total tomboy in some aspects, I was still a little girl, which meant one thing: princesses, princesses everywhere. More specifically, Disney princesses. So as a twenty-year-old woman, you have to understand my joy with all of the new live-action Disney princess movies. While I'm anxiously awaiting Beauty and the Beast (commence girlish giggling), for this blogpost I want to focus on two things: the newest Cinderella movie and our current political state as a country. But before we do that, I want to give a disclaimer: I do not approve of either Trump or Hillary when it comes to their character quality. I did not vote for either of them. This being said, I am not going to write from a perspective that supports one or both of them. This is going to come from a neutral perspective, so don't panic and stay tuned.
The main line or "phrase" in the new, live-action Cinderella move is this:
"Have courage and be kind."
Now go on, read it again:
"Have courage and be kind."
I love that line, don't you? It's plain, it's simple, and it's straight forward. Above all, I believe its exactly what we as people - whether we are young or old, male or female, Christian or non-Christian, Democrat or Republican or even unlabeled - need to focus on. We need to have courage. We need to be kind. But lately, what with Trump being elected as our next president, I have not seen much courage, and I have not seen much kindness. In fact, I have seen the opposite. I have seen fear, anxiety and worry, and cruelty, meanness and viciousness. I go onto social media and am immediately disheartened; we do not have courage and we are not being kind.
One of my favorite things to tell my boyfriend (God bless his patient soul) is that I do not believe the opposite of love is hate. I believe that the opposite of love, is in fact, fear. The opposite of love is fear. Now we can switch this around by saying that the opposite of fear is then therefore, love. 1 John 4:18 says, "Therefore there is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love." How can we have courage and love and kindness, if all we show is fear?
I have watched our country dramatically change within the last few years. I have watched us choose to love people regardless of their pasts, their religion, the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, their mistakes, their personal views and so much more. We were united. We were courageous, loving and kind. Our kindness was a priority, and so was our courage to stand up for one another. And suddenly, over the last 72 hours, I watched us completely fall apart. In a couple of hours, I watched our country shed our courage, kindness and love and instead replace it with fear, anger and cruelty. How did we allow ourselves, regardless of our views, to fall apart and become so vicious? We had come so far, only to lose it at the sight of one person plastered across our TV and cellphone screens. Why are we losing our courage and kindness so fast?
I have been on social media since the election and I have seen such a lack of courage and kindness, and I have watched us revert back as a country. In such a short time frame I watched us take one step forward and nine steps back. What was making our country so great was our courage, our kindness, and our love, but we are losing that. And it is breaking my heart because we are so much greater than that, and because we are called to greater things than this.
Psalm 31:24 says, "Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the Lord." Did you know that the Bible says "fear not" and phrases similar to that 365 times? Every single day we could read a verse about fear, and yet, here we are, focusing more on fear than on love, and we are driving wedges between each other. Our battle is not with each other, nor is it with Trump. Our battle is with our lack of love and our lack of kindness and courage. Our battle is with our overwhelming sense of fear that Satan wants us to reside in. By acting out of fear and anger and lack of love, we are becoming the very thing we detest. We are becoming the opposite of what we want to be, of what we have striven to become.
Ephesians 4:31-32 says, "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you." As Christians we are called to be kind. As human beings in general, we should continually choose kindness. When we decide to go against kindness, we gain nothing. When we block, unfriend, and create arguments among one another, whether online or in person, we allow anger and hate to blossom. Those are not Christian characteristics, and those are not traits of Americans.
I urge you, have courage and be kind. Do not become the very thing you hate. We are the UNITED States of America! We are supposed to be united, not divided. No matter who our president is, or what we would have chosen for our country, we still need to be kind, have courage and show love. That is where our power is. That is where our wisdom is. And that is where our voice will be heard.
"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins." - 1 Peter 4:8
No comments:
Post a Comment