Life is a gift given so freely to us, and we in turn have the power to bring life to the people we encounter...saying a kind word, praying with someone, smiling at a stranger...it's so easy. Yet while we wield such a powerful force as life, we hold yet another powerful force in our hands: death.

Death. It stings. It burns blacked holes into our hearts and shakes us to our very core. It rings out in gunshots and echoes into the hearts of many, continuing on in cries and groans. We fear it. We despise it. We can even speak it, and as we do, we watch it rampage through city after city all over our country. Hate filled word after hate filled word has come gushing out of the mouths of countless people from all over our nation this past week. And my heart is broken.

When you tell me that racism is an epidemic in our country I would tell you you are absolutely right. African Americans have been ostracized and abused. Asians have been made fun of. Mexican, Japanese, and European people have been treated wrongly. And people who are of Caucasian ethnicity are ridiculed just as much.

Life is beautiful. Color is beautiful. Black. White. Asian. Hispanic.

Violence, with it's swinging ball of destruction comes and wrecks all that beauty, causing it to crumble to the ground.

The beauty of living on this planet is that it is so incredibly diverse. From the highest mountain peaks covered in glistening white snow to the star filled inky-black night sky, we see in vivid reality that color is what makes this world so beautiful in the first place.

The soul is a beautiful structure hand painted by the greatest artist to ever exist. (Sorry, Bob Ross.)

All the beautiful pieces that make up an individual come together to form the most breathtaking of stained glass masterpieces. The soul is a beautiful thing, full of color and life.

However, we as a nation, have lost the ability to see beauty. To recognize life for the wonder that it is. We have in fact, grown color blind. And our blindness then gives way to the main issue: not a color issue, but as a friend of mine put it, a *soul* issue.

What will it take to fix it? I wish there was an elaborate, well worded explain action I could give you, but the response I keep getting is simply this: LOVE.

"Love your neighbor as yourself." It's one of the greatest commandments given to us.

In a world where hate has been spoken, death has been so rampant, and violence has wreaked havoc...love is exactly what is needed. I don't know what that would look like for you. Maybe it's standing with the families who have lost dad's and husbands, the cities who have lost police officers, the mothers and fathers who have lost sons ad daughters because of hate. Maybe it's finally realizing that color and diversity are what make this nation so beautiful in the first place. Maybe it's praying for this nation to heal...and maybe it's praying that God will change ALL of our hearts. "Perfect love casts out all fear..." I would go as far as to say it casts out hate, and darkness, and despair, and in turn helps us see that love is the answer in all this chaos. May we all begin to realize how beautiful life really is, and that love is what will begin to heal us all.