"I" is for interracial, but that can be a cold and technical word, so rather let's think Ebony & Ivory . . .
And I'm not talking about
Instead, I am thinking of some friends that have chosen to be an interracial family. I think what is important for you to know about them is that they have truly chosen it.
Having been planted on the fields of adoption by their Almighty, they could have picked eyes the same color as theirs, noses the same shape. They could have chosen a child whose skin proclaimed "I belong to this family, I always have" But, they chose second glances and hushed whispers, questions about adoption from well meaning (and sometimes not) strangers; they chose to be an open book.
Let me take you to my first memory of "Dee". After an evening of Let's Get Acquainted games in the Upper Room, we were going to be roomies. I was the preacher's kid with a pull out trundle and she was the youth pastor's fiancèe, fleeing the appearance of evil.
I don't remember what we talked about, or if we giggled at all. The one thing that always stuck with me from that night were her freckles.
Until then, with us changed into jammies and her shoulders newly visible, I didn't realize it was possible for her to be more beautiful than we (the youth) already thought she was--her curly, curly hair had already set her at both "enviable" as well as "oh to be like thee" She, being a modest person with a love for sweaters, had kept these pretty polka dots covered like a secret from the general public-and they pretty much still are, so don't go asking to see them :)
Maybe I was a little more in awe because I had never seen freckles anywhere besides the bridge of a nose, but hindsight being what it is, I like to think those freckles were foreshadowing of the coming decade.
Fast forward through "Dee" becoming "Miss Dee" to me (she became one of my teachers, but I won't tell you which, because it isn't really HER fault that my grammar is atrocious . . . )and thru her becoming "MRS. Dee" to all of us in the Upper Room (the youthgroup road trip to their wedding is a story for another day) and thru a church falling apart and the aftermath that follows...then fast forward a couple years more to the moment our lives converge again.
I wanted Chik Fil A that day, but the kids were due for a nap, so I hit the drive thru. I saw a shock of curly, curly hair that could only belong to one person standing there at the register. To this day, I still marvel that you can recognize a person from the drive thru looking in, it seems so unlikely. In that moment, I dismissed the idea and drove on, but not far, because they were walking out as I pulled past and I realized that it was hair-- er, I mean HER! We caught up quickly and awkwardly and I met little Bella then,all snug in her baby carrier, only a few months old. We weren't in our old hometown. They were on vacation and I had moved to the "tourist town" we were in only months before thanks to a golf course that needed my husband's expertise. It was truly a chance meeting, as they go.
As time passed and we began to re-connect through the marvelous world of email, I learned that Bella had a special story.I learned that she had been grafted in. When I look at her today, with that curly, curly hair only found on one person, I smile up at God and his sense of humor.
I was fortunate to get to watch Milly's grafting in unfold a few years later, and when I look at her I think of Dee's freckles. I think about how, even then, it seems God was saying something about color and beauty and treasure too.
I feel like there are some folks out there who wear interracial adoption like a badge. They take it out and show everyone who they are and what they've done. It isn't for me to judge and regardless of how they come across, it is a beautiful thing to adopt. But in my friends, I see a beautiful life, made more beautiful by "freckles". To them, their children are not just a color or a merit badge for bravery, but little blessings who just happen to be beautifully shaded by the Artist who created them.
With them, it is like the song says :
And I'm not talking about
or
though I could and probably should be.Instead, I am thinking of some friends that have chosen to be an interracial family. I think what is important for you to know about them is that they have truly chosen it.
Having been planted on the fields of adoption by their Almighty, they could have picked eyes the same color as theirs, noses the same shape. They could have chosen a child whose skin proclaimed "I belong to this family, I always have" But, they chose second glances and hushed whispers, questions about adoption from well meaning (and sometimes not) strangers; they chose to be an open book.
Let me take you to my first memory of "Dee". After an evening of Let's Get Acquainted games in the Upper Room, we were going to be roomies. I was the preacher's kid with a pull out trundle and she was the youth pastor's fiancèe, fleeing the appearance of evil.
I don't remember what we talked about, or if we giggled at all. The one thing that always stuck with me from that night were her freckles.
Until then, with us changed into jammies and her shoulders newly visible, I didn't realize it was possible for her to be more beautiful than we (the youth) already thought she was--her curly, curly hair had already set her at both "enviable" as well as "oh to be like thee" She, being a modest person with a love for sweaters, had kept these pretty polka dots covered like a secret from the general public-and they pretty much still are, so don't go asking to see them :)
Maybe I was a little more in awe because I had never seen freckles anywhere besides the bridge of a nose, but hindsight being what it is, I like to think those freckles were foreshadowing of the coming decade.
Fast forward through "Dee" becoming "Miss Dee" to me (she became one of my teachers, but I won't tell you which, because it isn't really HER fault that my grammar is atrocious . . . )and thru her becoming "MRS. Dee" to all of us in the Upper Room (the youthgroup road trip to their wedding is a story for another day) and thru a church falling apart and the aftermath that follows...then fast forward a couple years more to the moment our lives converge again.
I wanted Chik Fil A that day, but the kids were due for a nap, so I hit the drive thru. I saw a shock of curly, curly hair that could only belong to one person standing there at the register. To this day, I still marvel that you can recognize a person from the drive thru looking in, it seems so unlikely. In that moment, I dismissed the idea and drove on, but not far, because they were walking out as I pulled past and I realized that it was hair-- er, I mean HER! We caught up quickly and awkwardly and I met little Bella then,all snug in her baby carrier, only a few months old. We weren't in our old hometown. They were on vacation and I had moved to the "tourist town" we were in only months before thanks to a golf course that needed my husband's expertise. It was truly a chance meeting, as they go.
As time passed and we began to re-connect through the marvelous world of email, I learned that Bella had a special story.I learned that she had been grafted in. When I look at her today, with that curly, curly hair only found on one person, I smile up at God and his sense of humor.
I was fortunate to get to watch Milly's grafting in unfold a few years later, and when I look at her I think of Dee's freckles. I think about how, even then, it seems God was saying something about color and beauty and treasure too.
I feel like there are some folks out there who wear interracial adoption like a badge. They take it out and show everyone who they are and what they've done. It isn't for me to judge and regardless of how they come across, it is a beautiful thing to adopt. But in my friends, I see a beautiful life, made more beautiful by "freckles". To them, their children are not just a color or a merit badge for bravery, but little blessings who just happen to be beautifully shaded by the Artist who created them.
With them, it is like the song says :
We learn to live,
we learn to give each other
what we need to survive
together, alive.
Ebony and ivory
live together
in perfect
harmony
only they give so much more than just what is needed to survive, they have created a happy home. Stop over for a visit and let Bella and Milly's smiles prove me right: