Last year we took a road trip to visit our daughters in South Carolina. We had never visited the south and we figured the best way to visit was to drive completely thru it.
We saw cotton fields, thick, thick trees, and the mighty Mississippi.
We also saw something that caught my heart.
While winding down one particular twisting highway I saw this really big church. It had big white columns on its grand porch, and it was surrounded by a wrought iron fence.
It caught my attention because it was a church, and churches generally represent God, and God always captures the attention of my heart…
Especially a church….that represents God……and has a wrought iron fence wrapped around it….
My heart pondered. Why would a church that is supposed to represent God have an iron fence around it…
hmmmmmm….
About a half a mile down the road on the right we quickly drove past another church.
But this church was different…
This was a tiny church.
tiny.
It had no columns…or porches…or fences.
It was a wooden clapboard church with paint peeling off…..
And it sat just a half mile down from the Big Church.
Both churches spoke, and both churches spoke something completely different.
The Big Church spoke of wealth and prosperity…
The tiny church cried…it wept.
Both were supposed to be symbolic of the Same God.
But I knew in my heart that wasn’t the case.
We kept driving…..and driving…….and driving.
Finally we arrived at our daughter’s house and had a sweet time visiting our new grandson and their family.
But…right across the street…was another tiny church.
It wasn’t quite like the one we had driven past earlier, this one was made of brick and stone but it was the same kind of church.
It also was a little black church…
Right across the street.
I saw some young boys that went to the church outside talking and each time I went outside I smiled and waved and said Hello! And Oh, how I wanted to go inside that church and worship with them.
It was all I could do to not say to my family, “Ok guys, tonite I am gonna go over and visit the church across the street and worship”…
But I didn’t. I didn’t. I stayed and visited and had a sweet time talking with my girls.
A couple days into our vacation it was our anniversary.
We talked about what we should do to celebrate it and Charleston came up.
I knew nothing about Charleston, only that it was by the ocean and frankly, I didn’t know if I really truly wanted to spend four more hours in the car after we had already taken such a long road trip…
But something made me change my mind.
As we were talking with some people down there, a lady began telling us about Charleston and the different places you could visit.
“Be sure and visit The Market, if you go”, she said, then she whispered to me, “It used to be the Slave Market…”
Oh!
I knew right then and right there I HAD to go.
You see I have always raised my son with a sense of justice. To stick up for the underdog, and to never follow the crowd if the crowd is wrong….
One day when he was in fourth grade, I went along to the Denver Museum with his class. Nick, comes running up to me and says “Come here mom, you have GOT to look at this! It is EVIL!” I wondered what it could be that had him so shook up. He grabbed my hand and led me around the corner, and in a glassed in case was a ku klux klan outfit. The mannequin was covered in the white sheet with the pointed hat. Even though Nick had never, ever seen anything like it in his life, he knew what it represented, and he knew it was evil.
I told him he was right, it really truly was evil, and I walked away from that day, never forgetting the impact that had on him.
So, when I had the chance to go to Charleston and visit The Market, I knew I had to take it. I wanted to walk those same floors that the precious people years ago stood on and were sold on….I wanted to somehow close my eyes and wish that I could undo all the wrongs of the past…
I did get the chance to walk thru that long narrow market. I walked in and out of the buildings, in the sweltering heat, wondering how in the world the slaves with iron around their neck ever survived. I looked up at the wooden ceilings, down at the wooden floors and imagined the cries and tears these walls absorbed over and over again.
And I prayed. I prayed.
I prayed for God to forgive the greed of our past. Money is the root of all evil and money was exchanged for precious hearts and precious lives.
One day The Healer will return and correct all the injustice in the world.
He will.
But until then all I can do is hold a hand…….wipe a tear……pray a prayer……and comfort a wounded soul.
The scars run deep in Charleston. Deeper than any other place I have visited. The blood in that land cries out for Justice…
If you go walk those wooden halls in silence, you will hear it too….
Take Heart. God hears. God sees.
And Our Deliverer Is Coming…..
He is Coming Soon…
Read Full Post »
A Woman's Heart 