Just a few weeks ago, our law enforcement officers were being hailed as heroes on the frontline of the COVID global pandemic. Communities set their affection on our first responders and our healthcare providers, dropping loads of donated drinks, snacks, and thin blue line masks, sewn with love.
And yet, how the tables turn, in just a short amount of time. It’s as if, in a matter of 8 mins and 46 seconds, we suddenly went from the heights of heroism to the depths of hate. It’s as if the fickle hearts of men suddenly denied the existence of every act of valor, refused respect for authority and those attitudes of gratefulness disappeared. And now it’s nothing but hate and violence thrown at them. So much vitriol that I write this in anonymity to protect my family. So it begs the question: Who or what is our identity grounded in?
Our blue family, like so many others is rolling from one crisis to another in a season where the only constant is change. First, it was the COVID pandemic as we navigated whether I needed to reside elsewhere (as I am a critical care nurse caring for these patients) and the potential exposure of our family. Then, school was cancelled for the year, the body of Christ was barred from meeting, every activity became a zoom meeting, all fellowship with friends ceased and the mask-donning became the most normal thing we knew. I know you all can relate. We then had a beloved officer shot and killed at my husband’s department and couldn’t even grieve normally as restrictions were still in place. Two weeks to the day of his death, we lost another officer off-duty, tragically. And within that next week, the powder keg of society was lit and we literally watched the world burn as our officers tried to hold the line. I struggled with how to respond in Christlikeness, having my house built on the rock in the midst of the storm and viewing these events as sin not skin.
No doubt, these times make us question God and His plan. Because it’s certainly hard to swallow at times and not what we would choose. But we have to rest in the fact He’s God and we’re not. Look up Job 42:2. We don’t have the universal vantage point that He does. He can be ? trusted as the Creator. He made earth, us and ordains all things, good and bad. He never changes (Isaiah 40:8, Hebrews 13:8, Malachi 3:6 and on and on).
While it’s incredibly hard in times of tragedy, we must focus vertical on what He’s trying to show us about His character and not get lost in the waves of horizontal circumstances and emotions.
We may not know the WHY on this side of eternity but we can trust the WHO. So we fix our eyes there and find our identity in Christ—a man who rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, celebrated and hailed Hosanna and yet, one week later was brutally despised, rejected and murdered for me, for us, on the cross. Oh how fickle, sinful and wicked are our human hearts (Jeremiah 17:9). And how desperately we need to be grounded in His word, His finishes work on the cross, His grace and His identity.
I would encourage you now more than ever before to choose Him as your identity above all others. He is worthy and will use all things for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28), even in times like these.
– Concerned LEOW
