This Independence Day, I am thoughtful. Thoughtful about my country, my people, our freedom, our future and the forces that are trying to take that away from us.

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a note written in hopelessness. No! I am confident that good always wins and The One who knows it all will bring peace and hope to our futures in the right time. But for now, today, I feel the pain of my sisters and brothers who are suffering, burning, dying.

So today, it’s bittersweet for me – a celebration of the independence that was fought for and won 77 years ago and a mourning for the independence that has been lost 77 years later.

With cruelty’s grasp, they ravage and scorch,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

They sow seeds of enmity, leading to havoc,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

Blindly entrapped, minds imprisoned in beliefs,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

They wrest our freedoms, pilfer liberty’s core,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

Averted gazes, silence as witness to wrongs,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

They efface who we are, disown our deep faith,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

They plot and conspire, seeking annihilation,
Forgive them Father, for they know what they do.

Yet we will arise with grace-filled forgiveness, shouting,
“We forgive you, for you know not what you do”!
For aggressive grace has given us life, and we too are
Forgiven by our Father, though we once knew not what we did.