United We Stand, Divided We Fall

    United We Stand, Divided We Fall! What happened to those days? What happened to being a country that loved one another? What happened to being a country that came together in a time of need and did so peacefully instead of turning our backs on one another? What did our country fight for civil/equal rights for if we were all just going to turn on one another and have wars amongst ourselves due to "differences"? What happened to being able to make change and do it without hostility, violence, anger, and turmoil? What happened to prayer and putting God first? What happened to being able to peacefully protest about things that you don't agree with? What happened to love? What happened to respect? Why have we become a country of pure hatred? When will this stop? When will we be ONE again? 

    The answer is very simple but there are a lot of reasons as to why our country has divided the way that it has. We have removed God from everything! For many centuries, this country was a country built on the foundations of Christianity, prayer, love, peace, etc. and it was a loving country, people were united and things/people were a lot more kind, more peaceful, safer, and whole. You still had your crime, you still had bad people but things definitely were not constant chaos and turmoil like they are now. 

Psalms 97:10 - You who love the Lord hate evil! He preserves the souls of His saints; He delivers them out of the hand of the wicked.

    I remember when you could turn the news on and not hear 9 stories of homicides that occurred in the same day. You didn't hear about churches being targeted, the LGBT communities being targeted, police officers being targeted. What happened to those days? 

    It doesn't cost anything to love. It doesn't cost anything to be kind. It doesn't cost anything to pray. Those three things I just mentioned don't even require energy. Being angry, rioting, fighting, attacking, killing, injuring innocent people and taking innocent lives is what costs. That is what takes energy. And the outcome is; NOTHING. We get nowhere.

    Think about this for a moment. People feel as though a life was taken for no reason. So we all get together and retaliate in anger and turmoil and take five times the amount of lives than the one that was originally taken? We have five times the amount of families that are grieving and devastated. Instead of peacefully coming together and praying and making "change" the peaceful and legal way, we want to be violent? What does that solve? It is a revolving door of chaos and there is no end in sight. If we continue to stay in this circle, there will never be any resolution because a circle has no end. 

    Instead of our country just flat out saying that, "we as a country need to come together and stop the issues that we are facing", they would rather divide everyone into categories and labels. 

    Lets think about this for a moment! As Americans, we label people for everything. If you're white, you're racist. If you're Muslim, you're a terrorist. If you're black, you're a criminal. If you're a police officer, you're crooked. If you're part of the LGBT community, you're going to hell. We even label people down to the clothing they were, their weight, their income, tattoos, piercings, intelligence, religion, etc. JUST STOP! 

    Take me for example, I am a white woman, 24 years old, single mother, biracial child, work full time, full time college student, have 10 tattoos, not skinny but not severely overweight. A lot of things that label me. But none of those matter! What matters is that I have a kind heart, I am loving, I obey the law, never been in any kind of trouble legally, I go to work daily and provide the best life for my child that I am capable of providing. I would give the shirt off of my back for anyone. I have helped the homeless man on the corner that just wanted something to drink but I have also turned down some too. I teach my daughter right from wrong, she has manners, well-behaved, she is innocent and loves innocently. She is not taught to look at skin color, religion, etc. In our home, none of that matters. IF everyone were like this, our country would be a much better place to live. 

Proverbs 10:12 - Hatred stirs up strife, But love coveres all sins.

     Our society and country has become so full of hatred that animals are more kind and nicer than humans are. This is a sad reality. Animals do things for each other that humans would NEVER do. What is wrong with this picture?

    Why does media feel the need to fuel the fire? That is all that they do. They want people angry and in turmoil because that just gives them more to report. Just remember that they report what they want you to hear or what they want you to know. Take it with a grain of salt. They want us to be doing exactly what we are doing right now; hating each other.

    We should not judge or hate because someone believes in a different religion than I do, because someone is a different skin color, because she weighs less than me, because she weighs more than me, because she has blue eyes and I have brown eyes. None of those things matter. Those are physical things. The physical and material things is NOT what makes a person who they are. At the end of the day, if the "surface" is lacerated, we all bleed red. We all have the same insides, we all have the same organs. The skin color is just that; color of the surface. What you possess within your heart, the actions you portray, the way you treat people, the way you help others and not judge others is what makes you a good or bad person. 

   Just because someone is of different race, religion, sexuality, etc. does not mean that if their life was taken tomorrow that their family would grieve or hurt any less than the families of anyone else that has lost a life. We all hurt. We are all human. We all have emotions. We all make mistakes. Forgiveness is the key. Until you learn to forgive those that have wronged you, you will never be able to live in peace. You must forgive. Forgiveness is the hardest thing to do but it feels relaxing when you have been able to overcome that obstacle. It may not happen right away and it is a process, but we have to take it one step at a time and continue to move forward in the direction of progress. 

    Our Lord and Savior has forgiven us over and over again for much bigger sins and mistakes and He continues to forgive no matter how many times we make the same mistakes. If He can do it, so can we. If He can take the most brutal beating imaginable then we can learn to forgive people for their wrongdoings. 

    Time changes a lot of things, however, so do people. People can choose to change their hearts and when we start changing our hearts, we can demand change. And when we demand change peacefully, you get further quicker and you get results that you never thought you'd get! 

It starts with WE THE PEOPLE!

"Everything Has Its Time"
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 - - To everything there is a season. A time for every purpose under heaven: 
A time to be born, And a time to die;
A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted;
A time to kill,
And a time to heal;
A time to break down,
And a time to build up;
A time to weep,
And a time to laugh;
A time to mourn,
And a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones,
And a time to gather stones;
A time to embrace,
And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to gain,
And a time to lose;
A time to keep,
And a time to throw away;
A time to tear,
And a time to sew;
A time to keep silence,
And a time to speak;
A time to love,
And a time to hate;
A time of war,

And a time of peace.