“Well, yes. Yes sir, I do.”
“Then you can’t let that other stuff stop you,” the president told DuBois. “Marriage is the best decision you can make; it sounds trite, but it really does complete a person, rounds you out. If you’ve made up your mind that you want her to be your wife and the mother of your children, then that’s all you need to know. You really should think about popping the question—you need to get married.”
Even though DuBois has left the White House where he served as lead for the White House faith-based initiative during Obama’s first term, he still sends the president daily devotionals.
Dear God, let me know my fellow man through your eyes, and through the lens of love. Remove the plank of judgment from my eyes that I might see. Amen.
DuBois said the president often prays in the Oval Office and each year on the president’s birthday, DuBois helps facilitate a conference call with faith leaders across the country to pray with Obama.
The insights that Dubois shares about President Obama in his book are compelling, spiritually-moving – and sometimes heart-wrenching.
In one chapter, DuBois writes about traveling with the president shortly after learning that 20 children from Sandy Hook Elementary School were murdered in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012.
“I went downstairs to greet President Obama when he arrived, and I provided an overview of the situation. “Two families per classroom . . . The first is . . . and their child was . . . The second is . . . and their child was . . . We’ll tell you the rest as you go,”DuBois wrote.
“The president took a deep breath and steeled himself, and went into the first classroom. And what happened next I’ll never forget.”
“Person after person received an engulfing hug from our Commander -in-Chief. He’d say, “Tell me about your son. . . . Tell me about your daughter,” and then hold pictures of the lost beloved as their parents described favorite foods, television shows, and the sound of their laughter,” DuBois wrote.
“For the younger siblings of those who had passed away—many of them two, three, or four years old, too young to understand it all—the president would grab them and toss them, laughing, up into the air, and then hand them a box of White House M&M’s, which were always kept close at hand. In each room, I saw his eyes water, but he did not break,” DuBois wrote.
DuBois, a graduate of Boston University and Princeton University, now writes a column for The Daily Beast and runs a consulting company that creates partnerships around national challenges.
And he still works for President Obama, in a profound spiritual sense.
I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being. — Ephesians 3:16 (NIV)
What a blessing.
Obama’s ‘Pastor-in-Chief’ Protects the President’s Soul was originally published on blackamericaweb.com
