In these pivotal moments our of our nation’s conversation about race and violence and privilege and assumptions, I want to say the right things to my children. My voice doesn’t matter in the echo chamber of social media, or to those who hold seats of power, or to the average guy trying to discreetly lock his car door at the red light in a part of town that makes him uncomfortable. But to my children? To my children, my opinion matters. It sets the tone for which things are right and which are wrong, what is ok to say and what is out of bounds. It draws clear lines: this is how God sees the world, therefore, this is how we see it, too.
The framework for my children’s views are being built now, under my roof. And while I am powerless to stop the killing, while I stand helpless as fellow mothers and wives and daughters and sisters grieve those senselessly taken, I realize that I have a pulpit here, in my home, that yields more sway than any bill or protest or hashtag campaign.
I am discipling boys and girls who will become men and women.
I am shaping a generation.
I am training up people who, when multiplied, can show the entire notion of which lives matter for the farce it is– because all lives matter to the One who created them.
All lives mattered enough for Jesus to hang on the cross, so all lives must matter to me. And in turn, I must ensure that my children hear me when I say that God does not favor one skin tone above another, or one language, or one social class, or one people group.
There have been awkward, uncomfortable conversations in our home after news of violence has exploded, or a loved one has disparaged someone for not speaking English, or we have tackled some horrible episode in human history where to simply be born with one skin color, on one side of a political line, or with a specific set of beliefs is to live in terror. There have been hard things said… but we have said them, not leaving a vacuum of silence to be filled by the loudest talking head, or the next horrific event to be played out on the streets.
The thing is, I don’t want to raise my children to be color blind. It’s a lovely notion: just act like that new friend’s skin tone doesn’t matter at all! Just assume the playing field is level. Just pretend everything about the two of you is the same. Your background. Your experiences. All of it.
But I don’t lie to my kids. So instead of teaching them to ignore that God chose for someone to be born into circumstances different than their own, we talk about how those differences shape us all as individuals, and how our own experiences aren’t the parameter by which we should measure the actions of a person. The Bible makes that painfully clear, while also outlining how we are to live amongst those who claim Christ and those who do not– regardless of skin color.
Talking these things through with my children have forced me to not just say what I believe, but live them out, to put flesh on my words. I cannot keep my head down when people judge character or motives based on race, country of origin, or any other single piece of the big picture that makes up a whole person. I never should have been complicit with my silence in those moments in the first place; now, through the sanctification of the Holy Spirit and the blessed burden of training up my own children, I realize both my own sin of omission as well as a bigger truth. And that truth, simply, is this: I can’t afford to be mute.
In the big scheme of the world, the small knot of individuals who hear me seems inconsequential. But it is not. For them, I refuse to keep to the less-confrontational topics of the day. For them, I keep pointing to Jesus, to His example, and to the Biblical precedent we have for finding fruit in the life of a person. For them, I keep the dialogue going– and pray for eyes to be opened, in love.