[revtj]

Thanks for the words of encouragement, Zerbie. Ya'll spoke to my heart what I needed to hear.

I have been thinking today what it must have been like to be Coretta.

Her father's businsess were burned down 3 times when she was a child by white racists in Alabama.

Her own house was bombed twice with the children in it.

Thier phone rang continuously with hateful, violent threats & insults.

Her brother-in-law, A.D., was found drowned in the midst of the movement and it was ruled a suicide.

Her husband was shot to death by a man she never believed was a lone killer and she even met with him before he died to forgive him and listen to his story. She took the notes out of her husbad's suit jacket and led the march for garbage strikers in Memphis the next day, putting off his funeral to do the holy work of liberation.

Not one (white) public officical dared or wanted to attend her husband's funeral. Despite fear of more violence, his Atlanta funeral was public, his cortege being carried on a twin-mule cart down Auburn Avenue to Ebenezer church. He died, arguably, the most hated man in America.

Her Mother-in-law was shot in church by a deranged assassin while playing the organ (at Ebenezer) in Atlanta.

She watched the King Center she built brick by brick, under sharp criticism from within and without, slowly slide into financial peril...

How could one human person endure such injustice and grief and still raise 4 decent children, continue the work of her husband, speak out (dangerously) in favor of LGBT and all human rights, and still be the picture of grace and dignity?

How? I have asked myself that all day today as the rain pours down.

The only answer I know comes in a deep, still voice that tells me the Spirit of the Liberating God is how; giving herself to God is the only way it could have turned out like it did.

We all need that Spirit for the days ahead.