Racism should make us uncomfortable

I've been absent from blogging for a while now, but I have continued to journal often so hopefully in the next few weeks I will publish more. 

A little more than a month ago, in the middle of a global pandemic, we purchased our first home and moved our little family to the most perfect neighborhood. This is a neighborhood where I feel safe and we look forward to making many memories! A few days after we moved in, Brett and I were out in the garage when we saw one of our new neighbors. Brett, being the outgoing person that he is, introduced us. We chatted for a while about her dogs, grand-kids, and we told the lady if she ever needed anything to let us know. When my husband also kindly asked if anyone else lived with her, she said, "If you see a big and tall man, that's my husband. Oh, and he is black. Just so you don't think he doesn't belong here." We said our goodbyes and went back inside our home. Some hours later as I was reviewing how busy our day had been, I reflected on our neighbor’s words and I was shocked. 

My heart hurt. I never have to tell our neighbors to watch for my husband because he is a white man. I don't have to worry about my husband's safety when he comes into our home, afraid that someone will call the cops on him. And because I happened to fall in love with a white man, I don't have to worry about these things for my son either. When I realized that, I came to understand more fully the conversations about race, systemic discrimination, and oppression of people that are happening.  This is a drastic wake-up call. It is sad that it has taken so many deaths and the recent recordings of these deaths for this to become a wide-spread national topic and disgrace.

It is easy to say racism is a sin. It is easy to say well I don't engage in racist comments. But it is not enough to simply say, "Racism is wrong." We must be against racism and root it out and put in the work for it to end … in our homes, neighborhoods, parishes, schools, communities and even our own hearts. The sin of racism needs to be cast out of our hearts the same way we work to remove pride, envy, and dishonesty. It requires us to be uncomfortable and it requires repentance.

In my life, I am constantly looking for how sin has poisoned me and the hurt it has caused those around me. It is time that we all look at racism and how it has poisoned our hearts, some of it just being ingrained into our very being as children. We need to recognize it and ask for God's grace to sin no more. I want to root racism out of my life, so when my son is able to talk to our neighbor or anyone in his life, they don't have to point out that their husband is black out of fear that someone will call the cops. Each of us is “the other” to someone. We must learn to look beyond our “otherness” to see that in truth we are all one.