love is an offering

It’s finally night. My children are sleeping peacefully. My beautiful bride is reading by candlelight and I’m pacing the floor. Can’t sleep.   I just can’t sleep.   I don’t believe I deserve sleep.   The stars are quietly calling out to me, but I’m not ready.   I’m not ready to face …him.   I wouldn’t know how to start the conversation. “What’s on your mind?” My wife walks up behind me as I look out of the window.   She wraps her arms around me and gently lays her head on my upper back. “…I don’t know. I don’t know how to answer that.” I stare up in the night sky wishing it would give me an escape from my guilt and shame. “You know what you need to do.” “Yes. I do.” “But?” She turns me around to face her. Her eyes sparkled against the night’s light. “I’m not ready. I don’t know what to say to him. I need time to think.” “Then go think.   Get your mind right again.” “I should.” “Take your friends with you.” “Lisa…” I trail off and pull away from

The fear, the anger, the lust, lure and abuse of power, the thirst and hunger for violence, the socialism, classism, the racism and humanism doesn't just fester in "foreign countries" or in science fiction movies, but in our safe places, gated communities, places of worship, strong holds, even in the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave. I have to do more than hashtag my anger or cut and paste a famous quote or Scripture out of context.  I have to be more than a nice guy in a mean world. I honestly have no fast acting pain reliever for these open wounds. All I have is a soul that is tired, so to my Heavenly Father I surrender. I surrender my personal, my parental fear, my comfort zone, my pride, my biases, my lust, my social anxiety every time I'm in a place where my race is out numbered and even when I'm in places where my race is the majority, and yes I surrender even my own selfish desire to live in a world that I can rule and control. I surrender all. Bu