Words to Grow On

May 8, 2006

A Rosa Parks Moment

By

Gloria B. Hohn

“If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

The Civil Rights movement was born on December 1, 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama.  Rosa Parks, a 42-year old seamstress, refused to surrender her seat on a bus to a white man. Her arrest for this action prompted the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott and, finally, the Supreme Court’s ruling in November 1956, that segregation on public transportation is unconstitutional.  Rosa Parks lost her job, but gained the title, “Mother of the Civil Rights Movement.”

Rosa Parks was tired!  It was not the sort of tired a day at the sewing machine brought. Rather, she was tired of the treatment she and all African-Americans received day in and day out. She was tired of enduring the position that blacks were something less than full human beings. Her faith assured her that she was made free by her savior, Jesus Christ. In “Stride Toward Freedom”, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “No one can understand the action of Mrs. Parks unless he realized that eventually the cup of endurance runs over, and the human personality cries out, ‘I can take it no longer.’”

Our age is looking for women like Rosa Parks; women who are tired of the increasingly amoral society in which we live. Isn’t our cup of endurance overflowing? God is looking for women who will stand up and take action against the evils of our day; to challenge the infringements of public education on our children’s values and beliefs, to fight the wave of sexual promiscuity and blatant homosexuality that is flaunted by the media; to demonstrate a quality of Christian living that makes Jesus Christ attractive to those we meet.

Jesus, himself, reminded us, “If the Son shall make you free, you will be free indeed!”  He calls each of us to “stand up” and make a difference.  Your acts of courage may never bring you the public attention that Rosa Parks received, but you will know!  God will know!  It will make a difference!  Seeing what must be done, whether it be “standing up” or “refusing to stand up”, find your Rosa Parks moment!