Four years ago, I woke up on a brisk November day to presidential election results that felt staggering. Donald Trump had won, and he would be our new president.
To almost all of my local friends and neighbors, this was cause for celebration. Northwest Georgia was unabashedly on the Trump Train, leaving me feeling very alone. My reasons for voting against Mr. Trump were multifaceted but deeply, deeply personal, and having so many friends who were unwilling to recognize the wounds that were exposed by the election felt like a betrayal of the highest order. How could these people claim to love me but vote for a man who represented ____________________?
And really, it was worse than that. I had tried to have a few personal conversations over the course of the election about why I couldn’t vote for Mr. Trump, and friends from my local church questioned my integrity and my faith. A person from my church sent me an angry Facebook message, telling me that if I didn’t vote for Mr. Trump that I wasn’t even a Christian. When I tried to invite this person to sit down and talk with me about it, they ghosted me. This was incredibly hurtful and made me question my faith — not in the God who I knew saw my hurting heart, but in the body of Christ who would so willingly sacrifice one of their own to the god of politics.
Anyway, back to my post-election morning. I woke up, heard the news, and I started to cry. I don’t normally get so worked up by elections, but – again – some of the things highlighted by this particular election had scraped against some vulnerable places, and it hurt that our country couldn’t do better. All of my friends were celebrating online, and I wanted to dig a hole and hide out for a little bit.
At just that moment, I got a message on my phone. It was from my friend Grace. She had made no secret of the fact that she supported Mr. Trump, but the words across my screen didn’t gloat or celebrate. I can’t remember the exact phrasing, but it was something to the effect of:
“Just checking on you. I know you really didn’t want Trump to win, and I wanted to make sure you are okay. I’m sorry your candidate didn’t win.”
Let me tell you the truth: those words did more to restore my faith in country and church than anything else over the last four years. She saw through all the noise and clutter, realized my heart was hurting, and let me know she cared. She prioritized our friendship over politics, and reminded me that not every person voting for Mr. Trump was trying to dig a dagger into my hurts. They just had different experiences and were prioritizing different issues.
As we wait for confirmation on the 2020 election results, I have a challenge for you. I want you to think about your friends who voted differently than you, and I want you think carefully about what might have motivated them. You don’t have to know all the details or intimately understand their beliefs, but I’m challenging you to CARE. Approximately half the country just voted in a way that doesn’t line up with their belief structure, and this might feel deeply personal to them. If you are their friend, their true friend, and you care about the future of this country . . . now is the time to act. Reach out to them. Check on them.
Here are some things you can say:
- Are you okay?
- Do you want to talk?
- I love you and want you to know that I support you and care about you. If you doubt that because of the election, I hope we can talk about it at some point.
At the end of the day, it’s not the president who is going to define our country’s strength, it is each one of us. Can we reach across the aisle? Can we move past the sound bites and grab someone’s hand? Can we hold our friends and neighbors up until they find their footing again? Can we take care of each other?
It’s time to stop waiting on Washington, D.C. to do what we can do ourselves.
It’s time to be great all on our own.
Leave a Reply