Can God forgive man?

During a dinner at a family friend’s house, my phone rings, it reads “Dad”. I ignore it. My dad called me all the time, this was just another inconvenient moment to talk. My phone rings back-to-back, I get annoyed – my watch is synced to the phone, and I read a text from my dad. Notification reads “call me! It’s urgent”. I missed two calls from my sister after the text. So, I call my sister first to see if she’s talked to my dad. I was oblivious to anything on the west coast because I lived on the east. As the evening went on, it gets closer to my son’s bedtime. We say our goodbyes, figured I’d call on the ride home. While holding my son, we walk over to the car, and I call. “Dude…” my sister says. Her sorrow hit my face like a cold rag. “Jeremiah is dead!” 

My heart drops, I hold myself up against one of the light poles on the property. Thinking this is some sick joke, her voice fades, as my memories of my brother come back. My poor little brother was killed, He was my Robin and I, his Night-wing, older brother and I wasn’t there to save him, He loved batman and robin stories. I considered him robin, I was night-wing, and my dad was batman. He, the youngest of 4, was always a good kid. My mind was like puzzle pieces scattered on the ground. What!? Who?! How?! Why?! When?!She doesn’t have details; I call my dad. “Hello?” A voice answers the phone and it wasn’t my dad. The wailing in the background made it hard to hear. I ask “Is this Kimberly?” My stepsister responds. “Yes. Omar, Jeremiah’s been killed.” She’s mourning alongside my dad. “Have my dad call me when he can.” I look over at my wife. I cry, but I gotta know how this happened to a kid like him. She’s confused, so am I. My brother was a gamer, homebody, and a smart kid in school. He was a star football player, just turned 18. How?! what was the cause for something like this to happen? While we go home, I don’t feel any emotion. It all seemed so fake. I haven’t seen my brother in a few years, though, not by choice. That’s a story for another time but what could he had done for this to happen? We get home my wife puts my son to bed. I’m making calls in the basement of my house in the late hours of the evening… wrestling with faith in God. How? Why? I’m left with no response and its what I expected. My dad calls, he fills me in with the news, then breaks down – he repeats over and over “my baby boy! I wanted to be invited to his games and graduation not his F–king funeral!!!” It still doesn’t make sense. I call my brother’s mother. She fills me in with what she knows, and yet it is vague “he’s been shot” she says. I ask her, where? “In the face…” Once she said that I became skeptical of the shooting. Especially with her. There were only 5 people there and no one is talking?! How can she be so nonchalant about this? Sounds like an accident but it also looks like a hit. “Uh, so what happened.” she informs me, my brother always stayed at his friend’s house. The gun went off, and the kid ran, but it just seemed strange. “Are you sure?” I press her. “I don’t know it sounds suspicious.” She reassures me that the kid’s house my brother was at was his best friend. So, I begin searching on Instagram, I figured I’d find if my brother was being bullied or not. I found his ‘best friend’. Not one picture of him and my brother. I begin to think, doesn’t look like their best friends, there must be more to the story she isn’t disclosing. She insists she will continue to update us, since she lives in Arizona as if she’s expecting us to stay put and she’ll deal with it. I’m infuriated. I felt the cold chill of death. It was a feeling of hopelessness, evil, and disbelief. “He was supposed to graduate in two weeks!” She says, then she breaks character and cries. I couldn’t sleep. Seconds turn to minutes, minutes into hours, but I can’t help thinking, while I’m in the comfort of my bed. My brother is on a forensic slab, like a lab rat.

Then the Reaper taunts: “I decide who I cut down!” I couldn’t help thinking, while I was sitting at church this morning, my brother was being killed. I hated myself, in that moment, and God just seemed like a three-letter word. Wondering the look on my poor brother’s face as he was staring down the barrel of a
gun. The phone rings again, it’s my dad. “I want to go down there, Omar. I can’t just sit here I don’t care; I’ll spend whatever I need for us to go down there. I want answers! I don’t want to wait for her to tell me!” I agreed. Flights were booked. As I flew away from my family to CA. I felt a sense of deep sorrow, I wasn’t going to like the way this turned out. “I need to be strong.” I thought to myself but in reality, I am a coward. Do I have the courage to take revenge, to stand before the people responsible if given the opportunity? My brother was 18, still in high school had a great future ahead of him – and that was taken away from him. He always made us proud… but death is no respecter of person(s). As the plane landed. I begin seeing phantoms in my peripherals, literal shadows of something in times different places. First lay over flight was in Vegas, it’s 1 am. next flight is at 6 am. I have 5 hours to kill. I lay on the floor of the airport. Many other passengers are sprawled across the terminals, casino machines are sounding off, lights are bright and florescent. I forgot what the world was like, I’ve been under a rock or so it seems. Then I get a feeling, “Oh boy. It’s about to get real. I don’t think I am ready for what is on the other side of my questions. I wanted to come back to the west coast, but not like this.” I sleep for an hour, catch my next flight to Orange, county, and my dad picks me up, we get food. Phone rings, his ex-lover’s mother talks to my dad, and barely found out. We had no idea where the vigil was being held for my brother. Evil felt real, tangible, heavy, and present. My brother’s mom wasn’t entirely forthcoming. The weight of the unknown and something demonic lingered, more unanswered questions and fear engulfed me. I have a son. I can’t get killed or shot, trying to get answers. Fear shattered my faith. Demons of the west mocked. “Where is your God now? You think you’re strong? Can you fight a bullet? Would you have the courage to face any person coming after your siblings? You obviously failed your brother. You wouldn’t stand against a man coming after your own family, you’re a coward.” My family make plans to fly from California to Arizona to talk to media, and spending money we don’t have. I felt like a coward. I wanted all of this to be over with. Part of me wanted to see my brother, but not like that. Part of me wanted to witness the arrest. The longer we stayed in the Arizona, the more texts we received from family and friends, “come back! it feels dangerous. don’t stay there any longer.” but we can’t let my brother’s mom handle everything. She wasn’t trustworthy, from the start. She wouldn’t did tell us where the vigil was located. The whole time were there it felt like walking in the thick fog. An unknown environment, with no surrounding friends. There was an Instagram account that reached out to while being anonymous, they gave us information regarding the killing of my brother. Confessing things to us. It reveals truth about the parent in the house and the three involved, yet there must be evidence not speculation or accusations. This account gave us the intel for vigil we weren’t invited, I didn’t have to fly across the country to know who killed my brother, but here I was. The kid comes forward. Turns himself in but the drama doesn’t end. There are crimes we commit toward one another that jail cannot redeem. Shockingly, murder isn’t one of them. I’ve heard over and over that death brings out the worst in people. I lost hope in humanity on this trip. There is a spirit. Something unseen yet it has a presence. We head home and the torment continues.

The tires roll on the landing strip,

Legion, protests, and it tears at my psyche, was I so blind to think speaking for truth would bring peace?

•

Retribution, manipulation, with constant comparison.

“You fool! You will feel the sting of death!” The monster screams holding its victims against their will. A typical case of Stockholm syndrome. Victims doing the bidding for the abductor.

•

The crowd hold their nooses and when this spirit speaks, the land screams “justice” but do they know true Justice? Or are they screaming eye for an eye? How can the world demand humanity go blind?

I warn of the sting of truth. The truth of betrayal. The earth groans as another dose of innocent blood soils the ground.

Though the body lays in the morgue, the spirit of loved lost is at rest with the Creator.

•

This spirit of Jezebel dances and sings a tune like a siren and yet I warned. She parades about, hoisting the flag of false peace. Denying the reality of her son’s murder.

I shout, “Repent! Forgiveness is found in Christ. Repent!” I forgive my enemies, and the same mercy that was shown is expected by Him who sent me.

Other voices latch to her throne. They stand beside her because thinking they’re singing songs of life but all they know is death.

I speak for the Creator. His words do not take up root in the hearts of his creation. “A prophet is not welcomed in his own home.”

Then why am I here? Why have you allowed this to happen, Father?

My composure breaks – fear grips my throat and anger fuels me. Why should I linger around any longer? I’m unwanted. Family turns on me. I came to speak truth and return my brother’s body to the dust we came from.

where are you in this blinding haze? I am a father; husband and I don’t know what I am to do? I didn’t think Your words would cut off the head of demonic spirit the people of this land want hell. Now, I feel the reaper’s grim fingers stretched out longing to strangle my throat. I came here to be light, but the world does not like it.

“Retract your words it will lighten the suffering you will face at the hands of all! Bow down! Bow down!” The beast demands!

Panic calls out for the coward in me.

Then His voice breaks through the blinding fog and pierced my heart. His words to me, silences the accusers, settles my fear and dismantles my anxiety.

“BE STILL know that I am God.”

And I respond accordingly:

“Arise, O Lord! Do not let mere mortals defy you! Judge the nations! Make them tremble in fear, O Lord. Let the nations know they are merely human.”

‭‭Psalms‬ ‭9‬:‭19‬-‭20‬

These people don’t want You.

How great man’s wickedness on the earth has become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their heart is only evil all the time.

If love and forgiveness is a sin, then I’m a heretic.

Give them what they want, because their actions scream hatred. The world continuously hates you. When will you return and judge this wretched land?

Our prison are these bodies. Destroy your enemies. Wipe the land clean. Rise.

With the final words The Lord commands. “Go, you walk in under my authority. What is man? Take heart I have overcome the world. Go, fear not.”

Let God be true though every person a liar.

So, I press on… fearing no man, no beast.