I grew up in the deep South. As a youngster, I remember boarding a city bus and heading for the long back seat that stretched across the aisle. Mama caught my arm as she dropped into the front side seat and told me to sit. Her abruptness startled me. I looked back and noticed only dark-skinned faces in the back half of the bus and white ones in the front.
“Why can’t we sit there?” I said. She signaled to be quiet.
Another time I ran to a water fountain as we exited the public library. Mama stopped me again. “Debbie, use that fountain,” she pointed to another one.
“This one’s closer,” I balked.
She told me not to argue. I looked back at the dark-skinned children near the forbidden fountain.
Why couldn’t we sit in the back of the bus? Why did we drink from different fountains? Those early experiences were my first clues that an invisible line divided people based on the color of their skin.
Living sequestered in the suburbs, I didn’t realize the depth of this divide. I was more aware of how merchants snubbed me to dote on their affluent customers, or how, at my new school, the Jewish girls in my fifth-grade class stuck together. The barriers may have been invisible but were crystal clear all the same.
Unlike me, my husband attended an inner-city high school in Phoenix. At school, he was the minority. He doesn’t remember feeling racial tension at school. But he discovered a different world when he visited his African American friends’ neighborhoods.
While giving a friend a ride home from baseball practice, some neighborhood kids threw rocks at his car. His black friend stuck his head out the car window and yelled at them. They stopped when they saw him. Another friend warned him to not to come into his neighborhood without him.
Our experiences provided tiny peaks into the divide between races and socioeconomic groups. Randy Alcorn’s fictional book Dominion gave me a better understanding of what it might be like to be a black male living and working among whites in our country.
Sin separates. Love heals. The disparity between races, genders, political, religious, and socio-economic groups reflects the brokenness of a human race separated from God.
Sin separates. #Love #heals. The disparity between races, genders, political, religious, and socio-economic groups reflects the brokenness of a human race separated from God. Share on XThis is a spiritual battle (Ephes. 6:10-18). Believers are called to fight, but not in the ways of the world. Consider the following biblical admonitions.
Of course we are human, but we don’t fight like humans. The weapons we use in our fight are not made by humans. Rather, they are powerful weapons from God. With them we destroy people’s defenses, that is, their arguments and all their intellectual arrogance that oppose the knowledge of God. We take every thought captive so that it is obedient to Christ” (2 Cor. 10:3-5 GW).
And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but must be kind to everyone, able to teach, not resentful. Opponents must be gently instructed, in the hope that God will grant them repentance leading them to a knowledge of the truth, and that they will come to their senses and escape from the trap of the devil, who has taken them captive to do his will” (2 Tim. 2:24-26 NIV).
When we pray and do our part, God does exceedingly more than we can imagine (Ephes. 3:20-21). William Wilberforce followed the Holy Spirit’s leading and used his energy and abilities to abolish slavery in Great Britain. Every generation faces its own evils. Slavery still exists throughout our world. Inequality and sex trafficking occur in our nation.
We should not be passive, but neither should we fight like the world. Let’s use our spiritual weapons in this battle against evil and release God’s Spirit to do what only He can do (2 Chron. 7:14; Ephes. 2:4-10).
The back seat of the bus was the only seat that stretched across the aisle. That seat still beckons.
And above all these put on #love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. Col. 3:14 ESV Share on XBlessings,
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Thank you for this message. Each person has unique experiences with the world. I pray we all will come together and show God’s love to each other.
Me too, Melissa. My heart is grieved.
Hi Debbie, I exclaimed wow! What a word in season! ‘Know Jesus, Know Peace’. We are under a broken system and therefore as a child of God, this isn’t a physical fighting but it’s a fight against arguments, thoughts and wickedness operating in high places.
Knowing Jesus is the only way to escape all the corruption we are all experiencing daily.
Thanks for this words of life, it’s like a fresh water to a thirsty soul.
May the Lord rewards your labour of love in Christ Jesus.
Peace
Deen
United Kingdom.
Thank you, Deen. Your words refreshed me! Many blessings.
Debbie, I love how you intertwined your experiences with the Scriptures , then summing up with “the back seat still beckons”. I had different experiences concerning the same divisions that are still etched in my memory. I must constantly make a choice about these spiritual battles. I’m with you, my friend, choosing the Lord’s winning side. Thank you for this blog.
Amen, Ann! The Lord has won the war. One day He’ll set up His perfect kingdom. Come Lord Jesus!
I haven’t written much on Facebook about this. Christians are so divided right now. But I can’t resist posting your article there. ….. One of my best friends in elementary school was a black girl, Barbara Hall. I didn’t have “issues” with black-skinned people. For me, the understanding of racism began in Chicago. We lived in a highly Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was often like the gangs you see in “West Side Story.” … Later in life, I chose to believe this: We all bleed the same, and our skin all has melanin—some more and some less. The Bible speaks of tribes and nations, and doesn’t make a big deal about race. There is truly racism in every country as a result of sin. Some black tribes in Africa hate other black tribes. … For me, as a Christ-follower, I have joy to know that every tribe and nation will be represented before the throne of God. Maybe I will see my friend Barbara again.
Dawn, I love that image too. When I participated in a couple of Billy Graham conferences for iterate evangelists years ago, I felt I got a taste of heaven. Men and women (mostly men) from every corner of the world gathered and worshipped together. I had goosebumps.
Beautifully said, Debbie. We need God and His love front and center in our country and the world.
Yes we do! Thanks, Ann.
Thank you for sharing your and your husband’s experiences, Debbie. I grew up in the deep South too and saw a few things as well, but I didn’t see near as much as I could have.
“Love heals.” Yes, I pray with you that we each do our part to fight injustice. We can’t go on with this inequity.
Lisa, I didn’t realize you were from the South. Yes, we must each do our part to fight injustice. Thanks so much for adding your thoughts.
Thank you for adding your voice to support social equity. Speaking up and standing up can help bring down barriers one small step at a time.
Thank you, Barb. And I enjoyed visiting your site.
God bless you and your family. That was a good we need God help in fighting injustice. Only he can build the house that stand the test of time.
Thank you, Eugene. God bless you too!
Our spiritual weapons are much needed today. Thanks for a reasoned post, Debbie. God bless!
Thank you, Nancy!
Yes…I love this post as it is so real. I grew up as a Navy child so lived all over this country. I never experienced what you dealt as we were never stationed in the Deep South. But we did live in a state that is mid-Atlantic and definitely considered a Southern state. I could not understand either why things were done as they were, why Woolworths did not allow certain people to sit at the counter, why there were two sets of fountains, two sets of bathrooms. As I grew I learned the sordid truth. I was so sad. I taught school and one of my dearest teacher friends had skin so dark. After moving away, she came back to visit. Upon introducing her to my first graders, one of the children asked if she was my sister. We just looked at one another and smiled from the inside out. Then I taught in inner city DC and a few of the K-1 children called me a light skinned back. The innocence of children.
Linda, I love that. When my son was young he asked if we had another baby if it would be black. I asked why he said that. He said, “Because you already have two white children.”
Thank you for adding your voice to this conversation, Debbie. I loved the points about how we, as Christians, are called to love, even in the midst of turmoil and division. One body with many parts.
Thank you, Laurie! Yes, one body, one Lord.
I love the truth that sin separates, but love heals. I pray that we learn to receive God’s love for us, which helps us better love others. Thanks for sharing.
Thank you, Joanna!
Debbie, I have the same childhood memories. Thank you for a biblical perspective and this statement: “We should not be passive, but neither should we fight like the world. Let’s use our spiritual weapons in this battle against evil and release God’s Spirit to do what only He can do.”
Thank you, Jeannie. I believe it is a spiritual battle. Blessings.
I think your message really hits home for all of us Ms. Debbie. We’ve all experienced what some call racism in all its forms. But what it really is is another of Satan’s lies. God did not create white, black, yellow, or brown man. He created man. Then, seeing a helpmate was needed, he created an equal partner called “woman” (the mother of all mankind). So you see, the only race is the human race. The differences in skin tone, etc. resulted as Noah and his three sons repopulated the earth. Until man once again went against God’s command to go throughout the earth and multiply, in attempting to become an equal to God with the Tower of Babel, all mankind spoke a common language. Sin divided us, and Satan uses that to further divide us. We need to remember we are all one race. We should also remember that racism and division continues because we allow it to. Avoiding someone because of their differences is a learned response. We must stop teaching our children and grandchildren the same lies we grew up to accept. When we all choose to do that, and apply God’s word in our lives, we just might have a chance to truly live in freedom and unity. Well said author! God’s blessings.
Well said, J.D. We all come from the same beginning.