You Are Not Your Skin Color

 

You are not your skin color. Yes, you heard me correctly. Perhaps I should have phrased it slightly differently, as I can hear your collective indrawn breaths. Yet this is the foundation of my argument, if you add just one word.

Alone.

You are not your skin color…alone. No indeed, for you are so much more than that. You are not your skin color, nor your assortment of body parts, however they are arranged. You are ever so much more than that.

You are the first sigh that escaped your mother’s lips when she knew you were safely born, the hope that made your father scrimp a little more so he could provide for your your mom, you, and the rest of the children, should something happen to him.

You are the reason your mother sang the old lullabies her mother sang to her; the reason she loved the nestling of your sleeping head upon her shoulder as she walked that midnight floor…again. Your first steps were the steps of a family line extending back through Noah to the infant son of Adam who was the first to toddle outside of Eden.

It might have been midnight, or dawn, or dusk, or the wild winds of storm approaching when you were born. But with your first cry, the elect of the generations before you looked from heaven down the mountains of time and prayed, “Another young one. Good! May he be blessed as the Lord sees fit, and show our ways, the Lord’s ways, to the generations to come. May his life glorify our Lord!”

You have your Uncle Charley’s cowlick, and your father’s weary grin. Your mother’s quick blush stains your cheek as well, as her fiery temper stains your stubborn pride; that temper is the reason you found her so often on her knees in prayer, begging forgiveness for words too quickly spoken. You have your father’s freckles and his steel-blue eyes. Such kind eyes, until you transgressed, then they became metal-hard, his glance like a whip laid sharp across your soul.

How your ancestors made it to the European lands is not recorded, but it was God’s will so you might become the person you are today. The special gifts God gave your ancestors through their genetic nature are yours as well; His gift of His Son has grafted you onto His family tree. This was no accident. The Lord is sovereign: He alone rules.

So here you are. What will you do now?

It’s not an easy spot to stand on. Stretching to the East lie the swiftly multiplying armies of nations who do not know the Lord; their tendrils infiltrate the lands that once were ours. Often our children do not get to take their first breaths, cast out of the womb like so much offal, not like the immortal souls they are. Is it any wonder our nations are dying? Germany wants to encourage “highly educated” mothers to go back to work,¹ when their real priorities should lie in their ability to create and effectively nurture more children who, long-term, will refill the ranks of those who are now missing due to abortion and birth control.

Have your arms ever ached to be filled with the warm hugs and snuggles of children? Have you instead done the “sensible” thing and postponed marriage and family until your education was complete or your career and income stable? How often do you look into the eyes of the child of a passing stranger who looks like your unborn child might have looked and quickly look away before the emotion sweeps you up?

You can’t go back and erase sin, if you’ve committed it. But you can beg forgiveness and choose to move forward boldly in a God-honoring direction, a direction that will honor your ancestors as well. They always wanted something better for their children. Our Lord always wanted something better for His children.

You can’t go back and undo the past, but you can work for a better future. And what might that future look like? Well, you won’t always be  young. Your joints might ache, and it could be difficult, or close to impossible, to get around on your own. The spouse of your youth, your “till death do us part,” may have already departed. But, with God’s grace and within His will, the children of your youth, the olive plants you rejoiced in when they were seated at your table, surround you in your honored old age. You might live on your own, or be part of one child’s household, or reside in a care facility that respects the importance of including all generations in its life. It might not be necessary to consign you to the less loving ministrations of State care. So many of my generation, the Baby Boom generation, childless or at great distances from family, will find themselves in that powerless situation over the next fifteen years or so.

Your children might not have the economic “success” the Boomers supposedly enjoyed, but they could have the economic security of a working family business and family production of food, untethered to the grand machine of government. They might, moreover, be looking for more land to expand into. With large families becoming the norm while others shrink and disappear, it would be vital for them to seek productive land and network the family holdings into a working economy, in conjunction with other families of like mind.

You are not your skin color, alone. You carry with you the brains, talents, and gifts of generations, the love of God that has placed the center of Christendom where you and yours lift your voices in adoration.

You are in the center of the battle where He has placed you. Just as He used Charles Martel to stop the Muslim charge into the old Christendom, He has placed you at the choke point of history. Release that point, and all is lost, but stand fast and the infidels, the unfaithful sons and daughters, the fearsome Other and the strangers — all have lost their power.

There is no guilt in protecting the little ones who depend on you, no matter what some pundits say. There is no need to reduce the size of your own family in order to feed dependent strangers; you must look out for your own, for the predators hover and wait to pick the small and weak ones off. And how easy it is to pick away at a people when they can talk themselves into giving up their hopes and dreams!

Only you must think past today, think past the days when your present or future children prepare to leave the nest and begin their own families. What is the best use of your time, your money, when looked at through the lens of family survival and growth? I’ve seen books that claim the best use of your time and money is to invest it in your family, for God’s glory. Other writers will attempt to push you into a false compassion, where you squander your resources for the sake of far-away strangers. While God blesses whom He chooses, you may be the means of His blessing to your children and your children’s children. But you will never get there unless you think, and think carefully, how to use the resources, intellectual, physical, financial, that you have to further the good of your family and His Kingdom, of which your family is but a small part.

This may translate to less time spent online and more time spent planning how best to allocate the funds you have to expand your holdings or your family enterprise. More time spent training your sons to understand your vision, and then to work to achieve it. More time spent impressing upon them the ultimate importance of it all, that the charge laid upon you as parent and patriarch, helpmeet and homemaker, is urgent and essential for not just your immediate family, but families like yours worldwide.

Your children, present and future, may inherit your steel-blue eyes, sharp temper, and skin color. But what else will they inherit? That inheritance is up to the grace of God, as well your actions — beginning today.

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