I’ve been thinking a lot about faith lately, especially in moments when people are scared, overwhelmed, or watching harm happen in real time.
This post is part of our six-week series on justice, faith, and responsibility, but honestly, it’s also just a reflection on how people have made it through hard seasons before us, and how they’re making it through now.
Again and again, faith has been the difference between falling apart and holding on.
Not because faith made life easy, but because it gave people something solid to stand on together.
Faith Was Rarely Practiced in Comfort
For many communities, faith didn’t grow in quiet, safe places. It grew under pressure.
It was practiced during slavery, segregation, forced labor, displacement, raids, and exclusion. It wasn’t abstract belief or inspirational language. It was something people leaned on when systems didn’t protect them and when survival depended on community.
Faith became routine.
Faith became courage.
Faith became a reason to keep showing up for one another.
Scripture names God as refuge because refuge is something people actually need.
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
Psalm 46:1
That verse isn’t poetic to people who’ve never been in trouble. It’s practical to people who have.
When Faith Had to Be Lived in Secret
During slavery in the United States, especially in the late 1700s and early 1800s, enslaved Africans gathered in secret prayer meetings known as hush harbors. These gatherings were illegal and dangerous, but people went anyway.
They prayed.
They shared Scripture.
They reminded each other they were human when the world said they weren’t.
Those spaces weren’t just about worship. They were about protection, shared strength, and staying connected to hope.
After emancipation, during the Jim Crow era from the late 1800s through the 1960s, Black churches became lifelines. They weren’t just places to pray. They were places to organize, educate children, pool money, care for widows, and protect one another when the law did not.
Faith didn’t erase suffering, but it gave people a way to endure it without losing themselves.
Faith, Migration, and Starting Over
Faith has played a similar role for immigrant communities across generations.
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, immigrants arriving through Ellis Island were often pressured to change their names, stop speaking their language, and erase parts of their identity just to survive. Faith communities became places where culture could be preserved and dignity restored.
In 1882, the Chinese Exclusion Act became the first U.S. law to ban immigration based on ethnicity. Decades later, Japanese Americans were incarcerated during World War II, beginning in 1942, simply because of ancestry.
For Latino communities, faith spaces have often been places of safety amid cycles of deportation, labor exploitation, and fear, from mass deportations in the 1930s to family separations that continue today.
Churches helped people find food, legal help, childcare, and community when official systems either failed or caused harm. Faith communities watched out for one another because sometimes no one else would.
That instinct matters now.
Recent events remind us that everyday people are still being placed in moments where someone nearby is vulnerable, targeted, or abused, and the question becomes simple and hard at the same time: Do we look away, or do we look out for one another?
Faith Was Never Meant to Be Passive
Looking to God doesn’t mean checking out of reality.
It means finding the strength to respond with care, courage, and restraint when things are heavy. Faith helps people stay grounded so fear doesn’t run the show. It gives endurance for work that takes time and doesn’t always come with recognition.
Scripture puts it plainly:
“Carry each other’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”
Galatians 6:2
Community care has always been part of faithful living.
History & Humanity Spotlight
Hush Harbors (1700s–1800s)
Enslaved Africans gathered in hidden prayer spaces to worship, share Scripture, and affirm freedom when their humanity was denied.
United Farm Workers Movement (1965–1970)
Led by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, this movement combined faith, fasting, prayer, and community organizing to advocate for farmworkers’ rights through nonviolent action.
These moments remind us that faith doesn’t just live in belief. It lives in how people take care of one another.
Faith We Carry Forward
At Inspiration Apparel, faith isn’t something we see as abstract or performative. It’s something lived out in real life, especially when things feel tense, uncertain, or unfair.
It shows up in perseverance.
In paying attention.
In choosing community over indifference.
What we wear can reflect what we stand for and who we’re willing to stand with.
As this series continues, we invite you to reflect on how faith has sustained communities before us, and how it’s asking us to show up for one another now.
Explore faith-forward items from Inspiration Apparel here:
https://www.inspirationapparel.online