Embrace Love

Jo Anne Meekins wrote this poem to share during the funeral of her 15-year-old great-niece, Ke Yanna Shanay Jones, who was stabbed in the heart when she walked her friend to the bus stop and got in the middle of a melee of people who got off the bus at the stop where she was heading. 

 

They had taken offense at a man who was unpleasant to a pregnant woman on the bus. 

 

 

Embrace Love 

 

Embrace love, it is designed to cover a multitude of sins;
Release the anger to be productive, effective, and win.

God is love and He created us all to love ourselves,

each other, and Him.

It's time to make different choices
if we want to change our environment
and the hatred of the world that we are living in.

Ke Yanna, who was just beginning to live,
is a victim of circumstance.

An innocent bystander caught between
the poor choices of an angry group,
converging at the same location, by chance.

 

If we loved ourselves and our neighbors more,
this story could have ended a better way;
instead of paying respects to the memory
of a 15-year-old angel, who ended up slain.

 

How do we handle tragedies
and move forward, beyond these types of crimes?

By practicing love and compassion within our hearts,
and affirm godly thoughts within our minds.

Stop reacting to negative behavior,
Respond in LOVE for life's problems to be solved.

Don't turn a blind eye to the chaos around you,
step up and be unafraid to get involved.

My heart was broken and heavy laden with pain
by the loss of this precious loved one from my life.

Yet, I was able to heal, forgive, and be whole again
through the love and saving grace of Jesus Christ.

By Jo Anne Meekins © 2008

For more powerful poems from The Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence, see:  

When Will the Killing End?  by Gloria Clark

Faces of the Bereft by Hilary Thomas 

Lamentation, Verse 718 by Carla Cherry 

For the Lovers by Carla Cherry. 

Go here for The Blogging Carnival for Nonviolence 2023.