When peace like a river...

What moves you to tears?  What images stir up emotions that you struggle to keep it together?  What motivates you to action or to prayer?  Last week, I was moved to tears in a museum. I took a tour of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum located in Greensboro, N.C. 

Inside the exhibit, we (my husband and I) view a part of the complicated history of the United States. In cases, we view a portion of the Declaration of Independence, memorabilia from the Civil War, Reconstruction Era, and the Civil Rights Movement. In one case, I see a tiny green book that served as a guide for African Americans traveling in the south to locate safe lodging and food .  In another case, I see the robe of a KKK member.  This robe was individually sewn and crafted to fit one unique individual.  On the front of the robe, there is a small a red cross. The cross…How they distorted the message of the cross.   KKK literature… hating blacks, Jews, and Catholics.

Images... bombed churches and homes, smoke flowing out of bombed buses, water hoses turned on people... lunch counter sit ins... in it all ....they did not resort to violence.   We see hundreds of faces of individuals who were arrested…names of people who were killed…

 Finally, the museum exhibit ends on a hopeful note…  a map displays where African American have been elected  around the United States…  then places across the world where change is happening peacefully… I put things in perspective laws help...but real change… where lives are changed… comes not from the new laws…or newly elected officials... but when people have a new heart …God does it... a changed heart...changes behavior...