01/08/2026
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In an Ice-Cold World, Mothers Become Targets
By A Country Pastor
Along with you, I live in a world where concern for my family is never far from my mind. I think about my wife when she is out running errands or traveling alone. I think about my daughter and the kind of world she is learning to navigate. I think about my son and the pressures young men face as they grow into adulthood. I think about my own mother, who still worries, because that is what mothers do. This is not about panic or exaggeration. It is about being honest about the time we are living in and what it means to love people responsibly inside of it.
That reality is part of why I write as A Country Pastor. It is not about hiding or being vague. It is about keeping the focus where it belongs while also being wise about protecting the people God has entrusted to me. Over the years, I have learned that when you speak plainly about Jesus, about fear, about power, and about love, some people do not simply disagree. Some push for personal details that go well beyond curiosity. They want addresses, church names, locations, and other information that can put families at risk in a climate already stretched thin. I will not do that. Wisdom is not the same thing as fear, and love does not require recklessness. Jesus himself told his followers to be wise as serpents and gentle as doves (Matthew 10). I write this way both to protect my family and to keep the focus on Jesus, not on me.
That same conviction was with me last Mother’s Day when I was preaching in a small rural church in Tennessee. During the prayer, I lifted up a mother who had been arrested while her baby was taken from her. Her sixteen-year-old daughter stood nearby, not knowing what would happen next. I prayed for that mother and her children because Scripture calls us to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves (Proverbs 31). I also prayed for those who held authority in that moment, because God’s concern does not disappear when fear enters a room. God cares about people.
I knew that prayer was prophetic when I prayed it. It followed the example of Jesus, who consistently moved toward people who were afraid rather than away from them. Instead of sitting with that example, a few leaders in the church called a meeting to question me and to examine me.
I want to be clear about what happened in that room. One of the most vocal and visibly agitated individuals confronting me was a man who worked for the state government in law enforcement. He told me directly that part of his job involved arresting immigrants. He took my prayer personally, not as a pastoral act rooted in Jesus’ example, but as a challenge to his authority and identity. His anger was intense and physical, and his body was shaking as he spoke. At one point he asked me why I was judging him. I told him plainly that I was not, and that judgment belongs to Jesus, not to me. I said the prayer was about mothers and children, not about condemning anyone.
That prayer also led him and a few others to question my loyalty to Donald Trump, as if caring for a mother and her children was a political test rather than a Gospel one. It also became clear that they could not see the spiritual purpose behind what I was preaching and praying. Like some critics who leave bad reviews here, they viewed it only through a political lens and labeled it as anti-Trump. What they missed was that this was never about a politician. It was about Jesus, and about loving people the way Jesus does.
I also knew, as I had known before, that there were people in that church who carried guns into the sanctuary, and it was reasonable to assume the same could be true in that meeting. That knowledge changed how the room felt. It made the moment heavier and more concerning.
At the same time, I want to be very clear about this. The coldness did not come from everyone. It came from a few. Most of the people present showed care, understanding, and grace. There was real support in that room, even if much of it was quiet. People listened. People stayed present. People understood why that prayer mattered. I still love those people. That has never changed. This was not a minority voice speaking against love. It was the opposite. The majority were kind, faithful, and supportive, and that matters, because warming this world does not belong to a fringe. It belongs to the many who still love.
I did not continue preaching at that church after that meeting. When I walked out that day, I knew it was the end of my service. I did not return. There was no argument and no public scene, just a clear understanding that my voice no longer belonged in that space. Even so, love did not disappear. Many good, faithful people are there, and my care for them remains.
All of this has come back to me because of what happened yesterday in Minnesota.
I usually try to give breaking news time to settlefor a few days before I write. Facts matter, and people deserve space to breathe. But this moment is not about arguments or headlines. It is about a mother and a child. From what has been reported, the woman who was shot yesterday was a mother who left behind a young son. It also appears the child’s father had already passed. If that is true, then this boy now faces life without either parent. That is a reality that cannot be undone.
What makes this even harder to take is how it appears to have unfolded. Reports and video indicate that the officer stood directly in front of her, in front of the car, pointed a gun, fired, and then walked away. However the courts eventually rule, standing there and pointing a gun at another human being in that moment was ice cold. The movement afterward looked detached, almost casual, as if the weight of what had just happened did not fully register. It felt less like restraint and more like something out of the Wild West or a video game, where actions carry no visible gravity. Either way, a life was taken and handled coldly. A mother lay dead, and the world kept moving. That should disturb us.
I was in Minnesota last year for a conference and spent time walking the city. I saw its beauty, its art, its diversity, and its energy. It is a remarkable place filled with creativity and resilience. It is also a place that carries deep wounds. What happened yesterday occurred just minutes from where George Floyd was killed. Places remember what has happened in them, and people do too. When fear presses into places already carrying grief, it does not take much for old pain to surface again.
This is the broader world we are living in right now. Shootings. Arrests. Tension spilling into everyday spaces. Many people enter law enforcement or the military because they genuinely want to protect and serve, and I believe that. At the same time, power is not neutral. Systems shape people. Even ordinary neighbors can grow cold when authority is exercised without humility and force becomes routine. When that happens, compassion dulls, and others become unsafe.
Minority communities have carried this fear for generations. African American families know it well. Mothers have had to sit their children down and explain how to survive encounters that others never have to think about. Be respectful. Keep your hands visible. Do not argue. Come home alive. That fear did not come from imagination. It came from lived experience, repeated over time.
There is another kind of cold running through all of this. When a mother is taken from her baby, that moment is ice cold. Whatever policy language is used or process followed, something human has been lost. What should be handled with care is treated mechanically. That is how systems lose their soul, and that is how hearts begin to freeze.
This is where the story of Jesus speaks directly into our time. Jesus was not raised in a safe world. His mother Mary lived under an empire that used violence to maintain control. She paid attention, stayed close, and carried concern for her son because she understood the world they lived in (Luke 2). That was not about questioning God. It was a mother loving her child faithfully in difficult circumstances.
And her concern was warranted. Jesus was innocent, yet he was killed. Religious leaders and government authority worked together to silence him because his life and teaching challenged their power (Matthew 27). When fear and authority combine, it is almost always the vulnerable who suffer.
This is where the ice-cold reality presses on us now. Most people who hold power did not begin as cruel. They were ordinary people, much like our neighbors. But power without humility numbs the heart, and power without accountability hardens it. We are living under an administration that reinforces that coldness by rewarding force more than discernment and boldness more than restraint, without requiring the maturity or care needed to hold that power responsibly.
Jesus never celebrated toughness for its own sake. He taught that whoever wants to be first must become servant of all (Mark 9). Scripture calls us to speak for those who cannot speak (Proverbs 31). Scripture reminds us that perfect love casts out fear, even when fear is very real (1 John 4). And Jesus tells us plainly that whatever we do to the least of these, we do to him (Matthew 25).
God is not found in ice-cold hearts. God is found in love. And love still asks something of us. It asks us to stay human when power tempts us to harden. It asks us to keep seeing people, not problems. It asks those of us who still love to warm a world that is growing colder than it should ever be.
May we choose God’s way, while there is still time.
