Solidarity Director's Update April 09
Every year after Easter I am disappointed that I didn't really take the time to reflect and truly thank God for the event that we celebrate every spring. This year was different but not in the way I had hoped. I knew Easter was coming and my wife and I discussed ways that we could really celebrate it and start to make some traditions for our family. As I thought about what the week would look like I envisioned a lot of down time and a lot of time spent reflecting on Christ's act.
Instead, we dealt with support issues, sexual abuse issues in our neighborhood, gang violence, and the anxiety of watching our precious friends and neighbors make life shattering choices. Even as I write this I am still heavy with grief over some of these situations. Not the Holy Week I had in mind. Then I realized that my week more accurately resembled pieces of Christ's experience over the week leading to that glorious morning.
The last couple of weeks we have seen God do amazing things in our lives and the lives of our friends and neighbors. It has been amazing to see how God weaves relationships together that better glorify Him and work for His Kingdom. I see this time as the triumphal entry piece of Christ's week. As Christ got closer to accomplishing His task things became ugly, the darkness started celebrating and the darkest parts of human kinds soul came out and the same Christ that they welcomed into Jerusalem was the same Christ that they had beaten, humiliate and crucify. That week was really a week of trumoil and a battle was raging that was unseen.
We are in that place. We are seeing a surge of darkness starting to push back. We are seeing the enemy becoming bolder. This has been a tough few weeks, and just as the first followers of Jesus were devastated because they watched Christ die, we too are devastated by the brokenness and hurt in our world. At times it is too much to bear. But that was Friday. Unlike the first disciples we know that Sunday came and Christ conquered.
Dearest brothers and sisters, what is needed now is commitment. Commitment to a way of living that acknowledges and confirms the hope we have in Christ. We deeply know what it is like to live in this economy, we don't get paid a lot, we don't have insurance and we live in community to survive. There are times when we want to quit because our relationships are too traumatic, but we can't, we are committed to the hope that Jesus gave us on Sunday. We ask that you continue to join with us in this commitment to the Jesus way, whether you give, volunteer, or pray we ask that you push through these tough times to continue to support what God is doing in a lost and broken world.
Tommy Nixon, Executive Director, Solidarity
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