Dearest Boys,
Another shooting in America – a man was shot because his skin was brown and it happens all too often. Today, I am grateful that you have never been to America and that you do not have to be raised there. I am thankful for the ability to be the minority in your country rather than you being the minority in mine. (And if I am honest, today I am ashamed to call America my home country.) These events are unjust – they break heart and rock my soul. These things happen and they make us question so much.
I don’t know how to reconcile these horrific events with teaching you that what’s on the inside is what counts, not the outside. I don’t know how to apologize to your brown brothers and sisters on behalf of people with skin the color of mine. I don’t know how, anywhere in the world, this happens … I keep thinking “God created us all in HIS IMAGE.”
We are fearfully and wonderfully made. That means everyone: all skin colors, all ethnicities, all religions, all sexes, all sexual preferences, all countries … each and every one. Do you remember the song I taught you? “Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.”
What if everyone in the world lived by what Jesus called the two greatest commandments?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. … Love your neighbor as yourself.”
So, sons – in this world full of hatred, worldliness, anger, instant satisfaction and instant celebrity – I implore you to stand apart from the crowd. I pray that you will choose to stand peacefully on the side of righteousness and love. I pray over your bodies and souls every night. I pray that you are never looked at as your skin color, but for the person you are. I pray that the person you are is the one God created you to be, and not one that you allow to be created by the world. And I pray that if something like this should happen to you, that you die knowing you were loved well and pure by your family and the Lord.
