Colorblind?

Tracie is joining us for her first time as guest contributor at No Hands But Ours. Tracie enjoys life as the home schooling mom to her three blessings by international adoption. She rants, raves, laughs, cries and otherwise carries on about life as an everyday mom facing every day challenges at Mom Versus Wild. Tracie and her husband of almost 17 years, Chris, love hanging on for the ride as they and their family attempt to follow Jesus closely without causing Him too much embarrassment. Currently, Tracie and her crew seek to grow their family yet again through adopting a waiting child from state care.

"Colorblind? No Thanks"

Is there one of those topics in your life, that if touched upon, causes such a hostile reaction within you that you almost instantly feel your blood pressure rising in the form of a red-hot wave working its way up your body? I must honestly answer here; yes there is!

Anyone that knows me even a little is likely very aware that I deplore racism. Actually, there is nothing that I can readily come up with that would cause me to go "loose cannon" any quicker than ignorant evil being spread around the world in the form of overt or covert racism. It is a real internal struggle for me to keep myself from returning hate for hate when it comes to displays of such. Yet I know that allowing that wretched evil to cause me to reciprocate is, in fact, allowing the ugliness of racism to win. I can't do that. More so, I can't teach that to the little people that God entrusted me with for this season. Sadly however, being a minority in America, my children will need to learn a positive coping skill when confronted with race based hatred in their lives. I must demonstrate for them the moxie to look hatred in its deplorable eyes and say, "I can love you anyway. I will not allow you to reduce me to the likes of what controls your behavior. I will rise above."

In knowing the importance that this holds in the lives and the futures of my children, I find myself at the foot of the cross over and over again, attempting to allow Jesus to take the hurt induced hatred that racism brings out in ME and replace it with his unconditional love. My hope is that someday the wave of Jesus' love through me to the hater will be automatic, just as the rush of anger is today. I need to be able to model this authentically to my kids every time we are confronted with the reality of the heart issues of so many, still today, in our society.

Another distaste I have is how the word "race" is used in general. Though I have not formally been consulted, it is my personal opinion that the word should only be used in regards to competitions, contests of speed, or when referring to the human race as a whole species. We are all the same, aside from the beautiful colors of diversity that can be better described as we do hair or eye colors, with words like brown or golden; words that are not differentiating us into subspecies by our skin tones as "race" implies. Still, I'm not expecting a call from Merriam-Webster or dictionary.com anytime soon, so to make my point in discussion, society forces me to use the term. Bluck!

On to the phrase that set me off on this little rant to begin with...though I have used it in times past, just as other well meaning folks will likely continue to do..."True love is colorblind."

True love is NOT colorblind! The Bible teaches me that God IS love. God: colorblind?? I don't think so! God created us to be diverse, colorful, beautiful! He sees our colors and diversity and celebrates it! I'm thinking certainly a better phrase to spread would be, "True love celebrates color," because THAT is the TRUTH!

Not for one second would I want to be colorblind! Who would, either literally speaking or metaphorically? Aren't colors beautiful? Aren't they what give life visual pizazz and spice? Imagine your wardrobe or your home devoid of color! UGH! I want to see those things in full color! I want to SEE and LOVE PEOPLE IN FULL COLOR!

So, let it be declared by me right here and right now....MY LOVE IS NOT COLORBLIND! I see color! I celebrate it! I LOVE IT!

As a matter of fact I just want to openly say, "Thank you Jesus for allowing me to be part of a colorful family! Thank you for helping me to celebrate the rainbow of skin tones and hues that you so lovingly and beautifully created! Help those out there that are afraid of our differences and blinded by the lies of fear and hatred to see and love in full color!"