There has been so much going on that I lose track of the time! We have watched the two political parties nominate their candidates…that could have been all-consuming if you let it and if the networks had their way. Mercy! They’d get one story in the cycle and it went round and round even if there wasn’t anything new!

Then we have had police shootings…such a tragedies. For both sides. The men who lost their lives serving their community, the loved ones who lost their family member, the perpetrator(s) and their family lost their loved one.

We don’t like to think of them with sympathy. We feel they got what they deserved. No, as much as we’d like to write them off, we cannot. And I know I am looking in from the outside and don’t have a personal connection…

Or maybe I do. Each one was created by God for a purpose. He loved(s) them. I share that with them. I share this planet with them. I am a human being with my own struggles and faults. I have a faith that asks for total surrender but instead of anger and hatred as motivation, my religion is motivated by love – sacrificial love.

It asks that I love my enemies.  I am  even to pray for my enemies. And forgive them. Does that ask too much? Yes, it does. We, I, cannot do that on my own, in my own strength. I am not that strong. I can only do it by the power of the Holy Spirit, given to me by God when I accepted Christ into my life. As the Apostle Paul said in Galatians, “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me, and delivered Himself up for me.” Paul gave us the key, “For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” And he adds, “I can do all things (not just the easy stuff, the stuff that I want to do) through Him who strengthens me.”

So perhaps my role, is to pray for those who lost loved ones, those who protect my community, their families and the families of the perpetrator.  And I think each of us needs to take to heart the slogan: If You See Something, Say Something.