Please pray with us. Our niece/cousin by marriage—Mi-Mi Ursula Beal Arnold—her stepson, 21-year old-military man, Xavier Arnold, was shot and killed this week. Pray for his father, James Arnold, his mother and his entire surviving family.
“If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sins and restore their land” (2 Chron. 7:14, NLT).
Please, God, don’t let Atlanta go the way of Detroit and Chicago. Stop the violence all over the world, and begin in our own lives. Please bring an end to the killing of our children, youth and young adults. The shooter is 14.
I must be true to my heart and remind us during this tragic time that the sanctity of life is under siege from the time of natural human conception in the womb until natural death. Guns are just part of the problem. The violent hatred spurred by greed and godless lawlessness is occurring more and more frequently.
I saw the new Mandela movie this week. Even though President Mandela repented of his early days of radical violence, the seeds of violence and hatred sown wreaked havoc. I pray that we will remember that love is stronger than hate.
It’s still close to Christmas, so I’ll close with this:
In a 1967 Christmas sermon, Martin Luther King Jr. said: “The next thing we must be concerned about if we are to have peace on earth and goodwill toward men is the nonviolent affirmation of the sacredness of all human life. … Man is a child of God, made in His image, and therefore must be respected as such. … And when we truly believe in the sacredness of human personality, we won’t exploit people, we won’t trample over people with the iron feet of oppression, we won’t kill anybody.”
