FEBRUARY 3, 2017
A Quiet Strength
Read Psalm 118:1-14.
I was pushed so hard I nearly died, but the Lord helped me. The Lord was my strength and protection; he was my saving help! (Psalm 118:13-14)
my wife and I were privileged to attend the unveiling of the Rosa Parks postage stamp in 2013. We sat in the packed auditorium of the King Center in Atlanta and listened to speaker after speaker
extol the virtues and courage of this seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama. She seemed an unlikely person to spark a new chapter in the 1950s civil rights movement.
In Montgomery, as was custom and law in many southern cities in the 1950s, all public transportation was segregated. White passengers sat from the front to the rear, black passengers from the rear to the front. As the front section became full, black passengers would have to give their seats to white passengers.
It was the custom. It was the law. But one day it all changed.
The quiet, reserved, church-going Rosa Parks, returning from a long day’s work and seated in the black section of the bus, was asked by the driver to stand so that a white male passenger could be seated. She refused. She made no speech; she simply quietly remained seated. Threatened by the bus driver with arrest, she continued to sit and was eventually jailed for disobey- ing the law.
What courage it must have taken in the 1950s South to defy white au- thority, custom, and law! Where did Mrs. Parks gain the strength and cour- age to remain seated, digni ed, and calm? Being handcuffed, put in a police car, and taken to the police station was a life-threatening ordeal for a black person during that era.
In a society that seems to prefer volume—suggesting the louder the mu- sic, speech, or announcement, the more effective—quietness seems under- valued. Sometimes it is even equated with weakness. Rosa Parks was a woman of quiet strength whose faith was in the Lord. That day, such a quiet strength altered the societal practice of a city and would become a symbol that galva- nized a nation.
In the face of con ict, controversy, and debate, it is not always the loud- est or most boisterous argument that is the most effective. There is some- thing disarming about quiet strength.
Prayer: Dear God, even in quietness, you are our strength and salvation. Amen.