My heart is heavy. So much evil in this world. I do not understand all of the hate. Right after these senseless acts of violence seems to follow division, generalizations, arguments, more hate, and then the cycle continues. My heart is heavy. It hurts. I don’t know. During this time Christianity gets a bad name. I saw so many jabs at Christians right after these pointless, evil shootings in El Paso, and Dayton. All I know I have never, nor will I ever base my faith on any other man, woman, or child. My faith is grounded in what Jesus Christ did on the cross. My faith is based on the peace that I have despite the chaos in this world. My faith is based on the fact that no other name, but the name of Jesus, for me, has comforted, healed, mended, provided, and shown up for my family and I in the darkest moments. You see the fruit of the Holy Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. All I know that if some of these crazy, possessed, evil people, who some actually claim to be Christians were filled with the true fruit of the spirit, it would be impossible for them to operate with such evil. People have used Christ’s name for centuries to do evil, but that doesn’t mean Christ is evil. I normally have a lot to say, but not today. All I know that our country is so divided, and the division seems to be growing. I do believe that if one is operating in the true and living fruit of God’s spirit and is genuinely consumed and overflowing with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control then I believe that fruit would cure the root of a lot the problems we are facing in this world, our county, our communities, schools, and our homes. My encouragement today is get to know Jesus Christ for yourself. You can start in the book of John which is in the New Testament. Get to know his character, His heart, His purpose. I do not have all of the answers and I never will. All I know is I used to doubt and question every single thing when it came to my faith, which inspired me to start a journal over 14 years ago. I still have that journal, and over the years I’ve developed a strong relationship with the Lord. Doesn’t mean life is a walk in the park, it means I have God’s peace throughout the storms. My heart is broken for all of these families, for our country, for this world. Honestly, I need encouragement today. I think we all do. I just really believe with all my heart, at the root God’s spirit produces good fruit, that blesses others and is grounded in love. I definitely don’t have all the answers, and to be honest somethings still don’t make sense to me. However, I do believe that God is good, some people are evil, and our world needs a lot more love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I truly believe God’s fruit has the power to cure the root of a lot of the issues we face.