The events of FLORIDA HOPE TOUR 2013 are oddly bracketed by two windows.
On January 21 at one of our initial stops in Memphis, we gazed out the window through which James Earl Ray fired the bullet that killed Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Last Saturday we looked through a window on the sixth floor of the former Texas School Book Depository. From that window Lee Harvey Oswald allegedly assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
It’s difficult to look through those windows without wondering what might have been. I like to think the two great men would have worked together, that their shared belief in hope, dreams, and service would have altered events. Perhaps together with another assassinated dreamer, Robert Kennedy, they could have averted some of the needless bloodshed and divisiveness that followed their deaths. Perhaps things would be different if the men in those two windows had made different choices.
It’s idle speculation, of course, and maybe simply the musings of an idealistic dreamer. But it’s what I want to believe. And in the end it doesn’t matter.
When I think about those two windows, I’m grateful for Romans 8:28. I’m glad I know God brings good from horrible tragedies. Even when I can’t see it, I trust that He’ll cause good to come even from the evil that exploded from those two windows.
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Hi Rich and Becky – what a great perspective, from two very historical windows indeed. Just to stand in those two places must have invoked incredible emotions. Glad your entire trip unfolded ssuccessfully and safely.
Patty