We (Now) Hold These Truths...

"What is faith? It is the confident assurance that what we hope for is going to happen. It is the evidence of things we cannot yet see."

When our founders wrote those documents that encapsulated what this new nation would be, they did so as flawed human beings. Many of them owned slaves. As time went by, the disconnect between what they wrote and what they lived became so great that a war between brothers was fought and at a terrible price.

But once again, once the bullets stopped, the divisions along lines of race reemerged, because battles might be fought in the field, but all real changes must occur in the heart.

The picture above - I've seen in many places during my childhood growing up in Macon Georgia.

Even in our elementary school, separate water fountains existed. If you went downtown to the resturants, people of color either came to the window that opened to the street, or were forced around back.

Were they to decide to leave for a greater opportunity, they would depart by entering the "Colored Entrance" - the words chiseled in stone - of Macon's Terminal Station.

The biggest park in the area, and the only zoo between Albany and Atlanta, was located in Baconsfield Park, given to the citizens of Macon with one proviso - that it be used for white people only.

The church that occupied the corner of Mercer University's campus, a Baptist institution raising men and women to bring the good news of Jesus to people worldwide, refused to allow one of those who had heard that good news and responded - an African man of color - to worship with them.

That was then.

This is now.

May we continue to change - to grow - to live out our destiny.

I thank God for all those followers of Jesus and others who never gave up, who kept on believing, kept on hoping, kept on praying.

And I am so thankful that I lived to see this day.

Does it solve everything? LOL - hardly. But as a parent I can tell you that you need to celebrate every time your child lives up to what you know is right - what you know he can and should do.

This young country just experienced a growth spurt. :)