My heart aches for the division between us, how our nation is so fractured on so many issues. Yet I know that love is stronger than hate.
Thursday 16 March 2023
I was driving back from farm chores this morning when the Lord made me really look at the signs along the road. Specifically, the signs that say, “We Are One.” These are up in lawns all over our town, in memory of a young girl who recently died of an unexplained cardiac issue. His voice was gentle but firm, over the sound of the truck:
What don’t you see, child?
He knows my thoughts, knew what I would say before I said it.
“Three more words under those, Lord, ‘Nation Under God’. Lord, there’s such a divide between us. That we can’t or won’t say those words. There’s a tear between us, a gap, Lord, and I pray right now …”
I couldn’t even finish that because He said.
I am that gap, child. I stand in that gap, in everything that divides and unites you. I mend the ripped fabric of your lives as Judith mends tears with needle and thread. I make wounds and I close wounds. I make rifts in the earth, and I close them. I am the Gate and the Keeper of the Gate.
There was a period of silence.
“Lord, love is stronger than hate, all these signs are speaking ‘love’. You tell us to love one another – as you love us. I know love will unite us, it’s the only thing that will, it’s the only way.” Immediately I hear the words of Jesus,
“I am the way and the truth and the life.”
I drive past the church where they have set up some memorial spotlights to shine at night for the month of March.
Listen, child, and as you stand in the gap where I direct you, love one another as I love you.