therstblog

Just finished watching Dr. Martin Luther Kings “I Have A Dream” Speech with my wife and boys. I have fought the feeling of restlessness long enough that lives within me concerning a period of time where “we” freedom was a precious commodity. A time where white was white and black was wrong. A time where power seemed to mean more than prayer. Until today…

My boys did the best they could to stay focused and appear interested to appease their father, but I watched with tear filled eyes as Dr. King delivered one of the most famous speeches of our lifetime. I remembered the first time I heard it, and the stirring it created in me. Unable to fathom what it must have been like to go to jail, to have dogs bite you an attack you, to have fire hoses pointed at you tearing skin from your body from the waters vicious force… I couldn’t imagine what that must have been like. Today, I watched my boys and thought, what a blessing that they don’t have to go through any of this. That Zion will have never known what it was like to “not” have a black man as President. What a blessing.

Then, for a moment i thought, what a curse. To never have known or be able to relate to struggle. For them to look at an “old” video of a man speaking and not understand that this speech, that movement had a great deal to do with affording them to live where they live, go to school with whom they go to school with, to play the games they play, to dream the dreams they dream. I’m not saying that I think that they “have” to go through the struggle, but i never want them to take for granted what and who has come before them, to be able to do what they do. I never want them to look at yesterday and think, “that was them, we don’t care about that or we don’t have those problems”. I don’t want them to be called NIGGER, and run out of a diner because they are black, that happened to me not long ago, but i want them to know that they are beautiful black men whose wildest dreams can and will come true with hard work and trust in God.

I know, some say, why cant they just be beautiful men, why beautiful black men? Let me answer this like this. First and foremost they are children of God. Gifts given to Esther and I from our Father. Entrusted by Him to train them in the way they should go, to fulfill the purposes in which He created them. And simultaneously they will go certain places where people will not see their heart, but see their skin and treat them a certain way because of that. There will be people who will notice them not as children of God, but as black men and yes in 2009, 10, 11, 12 and so on may have an issue with that. How do you prepare them for that. Some people I know chose not to, I think that’s a mistake. Some chose to ignore it as if it is not an issue today.

I am raising them to know who they are in Christ and that in Christ ALL THINGS ARE POSSIBLE. Impossible is NOTHING. I am raising them to know who they are and where they come from. From Louisiana to Haiti my boys have a rich history filled with  both triumph and pain. Today we celebrate, tomorrow we get back to work. I am raising them to be victorious both in this world and the one to come. I am raising them to see hurt, pain and suffering in people and have a deep desire to help heal through the message of the Gospel and through ACTION, putting feet to faith!

Dr. King and all those who have come before you and after you, THANK YOU!