Which crayon color is skin color?

Do you know how there is the saying that "The more you learn, the more you realize you don't know"?  Well, that's exactly how I've grown to feel about skin color and racial issues.

I have so much to say and yet nothing to say.

Are you confused yet?  Good, me, too.

I have learned so much being a white mama to my black daughter these past 2 years.  I have gotten to know some black people on a deeper level than ever before.  I've learned things about myself and about the world that I never expected.  What I've learned makes me realize how much I did not know before, how much you cannot know until you live it.  Most of it makes me simultaneously hopeful and sad.

But, as a mother to white-skinned children and a brown-skinned child (some of them wanted me to do their toenails tonight -- one set of those feet may or may not be a boy's but he's sandwiched between 2 sisters age-wise, bless him, and he did wisely choose "clear" as his color!  So much easier than his high-maintenance sisters who want a different color on each toe!), I will continue leaning into these hard and sometimes uncomfortable issues. 



 But sometimes the veil lifts and there is no hard, just beauty and a picture of God's kingdom.  Like this past Sunday morning when I sat at a kid-sized table in my church with the 4&5 year olds I teach Sunday School to.  We were coloring a picture of Jesus and the official from John chapter 4 and the kids got in a conversation about which color crayon to use for the skin color.  Only what made me smile bigger than Texas was at the table with me was an Asian child, 2 black children and 2 white children all bantering on about skin color.  It was precious!  Of course I couldn't resist a bit of coaching, Me: "Is one skin color better than another?"  Them: "No!"  Me: "Do you know if someone is nice or mean just by the color of their skin?" Them: "No!"

Revelation 7:9-10, "I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'"

For now, me?  I have nothing articulate to say, but THIS GIRL?  Lupita Nyong'o says it beautifully!  Love her!!  Click here to watch her speech about beauty!