I wasn't going to Shield my children from the violence of this world, because I don't want to shield them from an even bigger reality; light always breaks Darkness. Love defies hatred when we stand alongside our neighbors and say “No More”, to violence.

You can build something new, one person, one relationship, one meal at a time. You can build friendships instead of watering the flowers alongside our long-held fences. You can choose to believe in the unshakable goodness of those across the Pew or political divide. You can choose fierce kindness by speaking the truth to people about the impact their decisions make on the vulnerable. You can call Self Supremacy the liar it is. It's a bait and switch.

Refusing to acknowledge the historical trauma of those around us is a cultural tradition many of us have been handed down, generation to generation forming our foundation of erasing wrongs so we don't have to right them. But we can change these traditions and narratives. The world can change, because we can change. I have so much hope for you. I have so much hope for me

Love is what I'm arming my son's with to go out in an angry and hurting world. This is the truest gift I can give them-an arrow to load in their bow and a solid Bullseye to aim at. It's a posture to live from, to love from. The power to decide ahead of time how they will show up for the neighbor nobody likes and how they respond to the bully on the playground or to the violence and uncertainty this world is going to ambush them with.

It took me being faced with a choice whether to take a child's life to make me able to surrender to the undeniable call to love my enemies. That was the first time I felt pulled between what God was asking of me and what my country required of me. God wasn't calling out my bad theology- God was confronting my Unlove.

I went to war knowing what I would die for. But now I know what I'm living for: to be the first to love. Every single time.

Refusing to acknowledge the historical trauma of those around us is a cultural tradition many of us have been handed down, generation to generation forming our foundation of erasing wrongs so we don't have to right them. But we can change these traditions and narratives. The world can change, because we can change. I have so much hope for you. I have so much hope for me.

The amount of violence against another human being we're willing to accept is a litmus test for our own freedom.

I don’t want my kids to hold an anemic love in their hands, to feel lost or victimized in a big, scary world. I want them to experience their power that resides in their little bodies and expresses itself in quiet, small words to defy hate and violence.