The Lines that Divide

I’ve tried to find the words that will convey my heart appropriately in response to the events happening in our nation today. Some moments there’s so much I feel I want to say and most other moments words evade me. I know nothing that I will say can take away the pain and hurt so many of my friends have experienced. Some of those experiences have come from first-hand encounters in being treated poorly either verbally, physically, socially or otherwise. Other experiences have been re-told and then re-lived because the harsh reality of mistreatment has been shared down through the ages. The older generations having to tell the younger generations of the hateful mistreatment they and their ancestors had to live through. These are stories and experiences that no one ever wanted to have to retell. From what I’ve come to understand in recent days, these stories had to be shared to ensure survival in a harsh world. To those of you that have been hurt and have experienced pain because of the color of your skin, I am sorry. For those of you that have been hurt and have experienced trauma because of any other lines that divide, I am sorry. I ask your forgiveness for not seeing your pain before now. I ask your forgiveness for not having the hard conversations sooner.

The reality of this moment in time is this: the human race as a whole is standing at a fork in the road. There are many things trying to divide and pull us apart from one another. With every conflict comes an opportunity and today is the day that we get to decide how our nation is going to move forward. The choices we make today affect the tomorrow our children will grow up in. How we come together in our differences speaks more about us than how we are able to do life with people that are just like us. Honestly, let’s face it, doing life with like-minded people is a lot easier than doing life with people that are different from us. Every day we are being presented with an incredible opportunity to see the people in front of us and around us. I don’t mean to simply see them to know how different they are from us but to see people as they were always meant to be seen and that is through the eyes of love and honor. If we all took a moment to love, honor and respect the people we encounter every single day things would change. If we approached our relationships and encounters with people wanting to understand each other instead of fight each other, our kids would be growing up in a much different, better and kinder world right now.

In recent days I have found myself initiating conversations that I never have before. The days and times we are living in call for these conversations to take place. Hard conversations are not only good to have but they are worth having. I encourage you to have them and not avoid them. Have these conversations (and every conversation) to listen, not only to be heard. Let’s let our end goal in these conversations be love and mutual understanding, not hate and mutual agreement. You can love and honor someone even when you disagree with them. The current state of affairs have shown me that I can do better and because of that I will choose each day to do better. The future is worth protecting and it starts with me. It’s starts with you. It’s starts with us leading by example. Let’s rise to the occasion and let this time make us better, not worse. The lines that divide I pray will get thinner as our love, honor and respect for one other only gets deeper and wider. We can do this. We can do better. We are better together.

Much love to you all!

Heather ❤️