Hebrews 11:1

These days, it’s hard to keep the faith. Faith in each other. Faith in our country. Faith in our future.

It’d be easy to turn away. To feel cynical or scared. But it’s more necessary now than ever before to keep our faith. That’s why on most Sundays you can find me at church somewhere in Maryland.

When I was just three years old, I watched my father die in front of me from a rare, but treatable, illness, because he didn’t get the health care he needed. My mother had to raise three children on her own. It was not easy.

But she persisted. She kept the faith. And she got help from the community. The congregation at Takoma Park Seventh-day Adventist Church surrounded her with love and care. It got us through one of the darkest chapters of our lives. My mother was not the first in our family to lean on faith when things got tough.

I come from a long line of preachers and teachers. My great-grandfather, Josiah Thomas, was a minister in South Carolina. His son, my grandfather, James, was the first Black minister in the American Dutch Reformed Church.

Josiah and his children had to flee to Jamaica in the middle of the night after being targeted by the Ku Klux Klan. James returned to America on his own, with a thick Jamaican accent, and led a predominantly white church. Through it all, they kept the faith.

Today, communities across Maryland and our country are struggling. A lot is out of our control. We face enormous challenges–many spurred and enlarged by the federal government. From making sure families can afford their rent, to filling up their tanks at the gas pump, to putting food on the table.

It is easy to succumb to the darkness. It is easy to renounce all hope. It is easy to forget everything that makes us strong. But that’s exactly what those who seek to divide us want. We must not give it to them.

Our faith is a reminder that while weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning. Things might not look so bright right now. But our best days are ahead. That is why I go to church. And every time I do, I think about my grandfather.

Every Sunday marks another chance to stand together, in community, and pray for a better tomorrow. I don’t take that for granted.

We have a long way to go. But we can’t forget how far we’ve come.

Elevate,
Wes