George Floyd Is My Son

George Floyd is my son. It’s personal. Until we start looking at news stories as if they are our children’s diaries, we will never be able to be a part of truly loving the world. 

As followers of Christ, the only appropriate response to injustice is to personally step into the lives of others, feel their pain, cry their tears, bear their burdens, lay our lives down for the life of another as if life depended on it. BECAUSE IT DOES! 

I am incredibly fearful I could possibly offend or increase the pain of the trauma at hand, but I feel God asking me to take my internal, private heart wrestle into the external, public heart wrenching in our nation. I am trusting Him with my words and praying He uses them for His glory in His redemption, reconciliation Story! 

I watched the video of George Floyd over and over again and did not allow myself to look away. God never turns a blind eye to our suffering; therefore I will embrace the suffering of a son and I will mourn as a mama having her very heart ripped out. 

As you read my letter in the first person, I pray it prompts you to do the same. Until we see the George Floyds of this world as our babies, we cannot honestly be a part of putting an end to  the systemic atrocity of racism in our country. 

Dear George, my son, my joy,

I remember the first time I felt you move in my womb. It was as if time stood still. I experienced life for the first time in my life and it was a private moment between me and the God of the universe as we savored the miracle of your life in the movement of your tiny, beautiful, safe, purposeful, sacred body dancing inside me. 

As you grew and my tummy stretched, I dreamed of you: your first breath, your first cry, your first smile, giggle and tear, 

your sleepy eyes, your footie pajamas, your first steps, tooth and day of school. 

Would you be artistic, play instruments, play sports, write poems, sing songs, create stories, solve problems, design buildings, make people laugh, sit with the sad and dance with the joyful? Would you like ice cream or be lactose intolerant, drink soda or stick to water, chew gum and blow bubbles and ride bikes and watch cartoons and go fishing, hunting and skiing?

Would you love animals, swimming and rain? Would you fix engines, be an astronaut, a surgeon or a lawyer? 

I knew in the depth of my soul that you would stand for justice, bow at the feet of your Savior and look for the best in others, even when it seemed impossible to find. I knew you would have a heart for the least of these and be a conduit of love, grace and mercy. And I knew that the legacy you one day would leave behind would be one that made much of Christ. Your life would sing of limitless potential, hope and the belief that we could all play a part in making a better, more loving, diverse but not divided tomorrow. 

I just didn’t know your legacy would start so soon. I envisioned getting to watch you grow and live out your divine design here on earth for way longer than this.  

I knew from the moment you were conceived God had great plans for your life, plans to prosper you and not harm you, plans for a hope and future that would make much of HIM. I knew I had nine months to hold you tight, feed you well, pray words of life and divine destiny over you and breathe for you until the day God chose, before the foundation of the world, to be your birthday, the day you left the security, safety and sweetness of the womb to enter a world still groaning for things to be made right. 

Oh how I wish I could have breathed for you again that day you laid face down on the concrete beneath a knee that became your noose. 

So what now Lord? Why didn’t the sea split, the rock gush water, and the formidable walls of Jericho come crumbling down for my George? I’m confused and sick and grieved beyond words Lord, that my baby’s life was taken too soon. 

As much as I wanted to look away from the video of my child gasping for air, I couldn’t take my eyes off his face, as if somehow I could peer through the screen back in time to that fateful day and he could actually lock eyes on me and at least feel the comfort of his mama right there with him wanting more than anything to be able to take his place. 

I couldn’t help but feel Mary’s crushing as she watched her son die an undeserving death. I felt Mary groping for oxygen as she locked eyes with her baby boy, now a grown man, struggling to breathe on that cross. I see her replaying every memory they had ever made, rehearsing every tiny detail of his life that she had pondered and tucked away into the very fabric of her being. I felt and feel the pain that was and is unbearable, all consuming and hope shattering! When there are no words… 

Lord I know you are still good, all powerful, all knowing, and in all places. I know you see the end from the beginning and You are faithful and true. But now, O God, please make yourself real to me, to us, to this world, like you promised you would. 

Because of your constant love and and your heart-melting kindness, come be our hero and deliver us from the evils of injustice, hatred, racism and bitterness. I am broken, needy and hurting. My heart is pierced through and I am wounded. I am slipping down a dark slope, shaken to the core and helpless! I know you stand right next to the broken ones therefore I know you are standing in solidarity with me and everyone who is gutted by this senseless loss of precious life. 

Father God, I know that all that you accomplish is flawless, faithful and fair; therefore, as I stare and have to stomach the flaws, fear, and unfairness I am barely hanging on by your scarlet thread through tearstained eyes walking by faith, not sight, toward the only HOPE. 

Hope has a name and it is you Jesus.

Lord, I am begging from the depths of my shattered soul, prove the evils of this world wrong when they utter, “God can’t help you!” Let the light of your radiant face break through and shine upon us! 

Lord every ounce of my mama’s heart still longs for a do-over, a retake and another opportunity to see the fate of George Floyd here on earth done differently. I have given myself permission to go to all the different and better ways this could have and should have played out. I get to sit in my sadness, knowing I am not alone and I do not have to put a timeline on my heart’s mourning and healing process either. What I do know is that George’s life was not and will not be in vain. (*References from The Psalms in The Passion Translation)

Lord, I am trusting you to bring justice. I am trusting you to hold and keep pumping my shredded heart and I am trusting you to heal my mama wounds and the wounds of your world in your way, your timing and for your glory. 

I want to be a part of leaving the legacy of George in this world but I don’t know how. 

God, I need you to show me how to be an instrument of light in a dark world, how to persevere in faith in the midst of tangible righteous anger and gritty unfathomable grief. I want to be a voice for the voiceless, never downplaying or glossing over the atrocities of racism, hate, and unforgiveness, always willing and ready to stand with the marginalized and stand up for the oppressed.  Lord I don’t know what to do, but my eyes are on you!

George Floyd is my son. He is your son too. Until we start making it personal, we remain part of the problem.

 Everything in my flesh wants to respond like Jonah. I don’t want to go offer God’s mercy and grace to those who have hated and murdered. But I know the best thing that could ever happen to this world is for all the Sauls persecuting God’s people to have a road to Damascus experience, encounter Christ for themselves, repent and live the rest of their lives unashamedly sharing the undeserved grace they were so freely given. 

In my flesh I don’t want to pray in the first person like Nehemiah as if he was the one who had turned his back on God and chased after the false Gods of this world and prostituted themselves to pride and selfish ambition.But in Christ, that is exactly what I am called to do! 

I am called to go to the worst of the worst and preach repentance so that the extravagant love of God can redeem the unredeemable. I am called to stand in the gap and pray in the first person like Nehemiah as if I were the child of God forfeiting HIM to chase after my own selfish evil ways and ask God to forgive me my sins as He forgave me. I am called, like Paul, to continually remember and retell who I was apart from Christ so as to spotlight the redemption and reconciliation to the Heart of our Heavenly Father that comes only through the blood of the spotless, sinless, perfect holy Lamb of God, Christ Jesus. I, WE, CANNOT DO THESE THINGS BUT CHRIST IN ME, US, CAN!

(**In writing all of that I feel the gentle and loving conviction of the Holy Spirit reminding me of the abundant grace and mercy God lavished on me when I was far from walking with Him. I am reminded that I, too, do not deserve and cannot earn God’s love and redemption. I can only fall on my face daily in humble gratitude that God never stopped His hot pursuit of my heart, that once I was lost, but now I, too, am found. Therefore, I will dedicate the rest of my life to never letting this grace go wasted!)

I can get so disgusted during these times of public horror by the number of Bible verses casually thrown out there. It feels like Satan in the wilderness using scripture against Scripture Himself. 

However, who am I to judge the heart of the one using the verse? Christ Himself didn’t get cynical or harden HIs heart to the Word just because the one using it used it in vain. I am called to nothing less. Christ is the Word, and HE is still our only hope, saving grace and instrument of light. His Word has been, is and will always be the welcomed scalpel in the hand of the Great Physician giving me a new heart, a renewed mind and a transformed life; therefore I, too, will wield His Sword as an instrument of light, a shaker of salt and a conduit of Grace and Truth. 

The stories in the Bible are not fiction. We should read these nonfiction accounts as if they too were our children’s diaries. I read Queen Esther’s story as if it is just a chapter of the life of my daughter Haddassa’s life. Mordecai tells Esther that remaining silent at the expense of an oppressed people group was not an option. In other words, to remain silent in the face of such evil is no better than being the one devising the genocide in the first place. 

Esther chooses to be the voice of the voiceless regardless of her own personal consequences. Esther chooses the greater good over possible self-preservation. Esther’s choice to speak up showed that she valued the life of her people enough to lay her life down for theirs. 

George Floyd is our people. Will we stand together for such a time as this and lay our life down by standing up for his? 

George- I love you. You were, are and will always be smart, wonderful and beautiful. I will never forget you and I will tell the love songs of your life all the days of mine. The testimony of your life will forever be coupled with the Blood of the Lamb. Others will be overcomers because of your dance with Jesus and just like the woman with the alabaster jar at Jesus feet, each time the gospel is preached, your story will indeed be told in memory of you! 

Love, 

This Mama and countless more 

My prayer for this post is that we all make it personal and take it personally. May we stop being bystanders like the priest and levite who “social distanced” themselves from the man beaten and laying on the street. May we learn what it looks like to truly be the hands and feet of Jesus as we become the good Samaritan. The Good Samaritans here did all they could by shining the light on injustice and choosing to stay on the scene when it would have been so easy to run away from the horror. Thank you for being FIRST RESPONDERS with your staying presence and may we be as brave as you and move toward the pain and do all we can. That sounds a lot like what Jesus would do!