This morning, as we rise—and before we fully begin our day—I want to encourage us to center ourselves, to ground ourselves in the miracle of this moment.

We are nearing the end of Black History Month 2026.
And for just a moment, I invite you to consider the thousands of things—the events large and small, the chance encounters, the circumstances, the challenges—that conspired to bring us to this moment. It is nothing short of miraculous.

“The LORD works in mysterious ways,” the ancestors declared.

Somehow, from the tragedies and the triumphs of our past, God has woven a tapestry that stands as a testimony to God’s grace, wisdom, creativity, and power.

Our enslaved ancestors mirrored this divine creativity.
Our foreparents mastered the art of transformation—turning scraps into soul food, discarded remnants into quilts, minor notes into melodies. They cultivated character through crisis, turning catastrophe into compost—fertile soil that continues to sustain future generations.

By God’s grace, their—our—struggles and suffering were, and still are, transformed into strength and sensitivity. Nothing was wasted.

Frederick Douglass reminds us, “There is no progress without struggle.”

We are still here—not merely despite the past, but in many ways because of it. Because of all the small and significant moments that came before us. Because of what we have encountered, experienced, and endured.

James Weldon Johnson wrote:

Bitter the chast’ning rod
Felt in the day that hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered.
Out from the gloomy past, till now we stand at last—

We are still here, not accidentally or coincidentally, but providentially.

Despite the troubling times we now face – let’s not neglect this truth – the same God that sustained our ancestors is still working through our circumstances for our good and our perfecting…

Good Morning, I love you all!

ihs,

just adam