Today’s Reflection
FOR MUCH of my life, I have had to deal with people who thought I was too black to be white and too white to be black. It has always seemed a strange phenomenon to me, since I am the same person inside. There have been times when white people shunned me without ever getting to know me. They just saw the color of my skin and turned away. But there have also been times when black people shook their heads as soon as they discovered that I had white friends. They thought I had somehow betrayed my ethnic heritage.
It seems I often had a foot in two different worlds. One black. One white. The two worlds were very different yet also alike. Even as a youngster, I wondered why skin color should make a difference in how we treat one another.
Throughout my life, I have tried to live my mother’s mantra: Do not take on another’s hatred. What wonderful wisdom! Like her, I have found that the best way to change a person’s prejudice is to model a Christlike life. Only then are we able to rise above bitterness, anger, and revenge. After all, God is the Creator of us all, no matter the color of our skin.
- Lucimarian Roberts as told to Missy Buchanan with reflections by Robin Roberts
My Story, My Song
From pages 43-44 of My Story, My Song: Mother-Daughter Reflections on Life and Faith by Lucimarian Roberts as told to Missy Buchanan with reflections by Robin Roberts. Copyright © 2012 by Lucimarian Roberts. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Upper Room Books. http://bookstore.upperroom.org/ Learn more about or purchase this book.
Today’s Question
Do you have words of wisdom you would share from an ancestor? Share your thoughts.
Today’s Scripture
Great are the works of the LORD, studied by all who delight in them. Full of honor and majesty is his work, and his righteousness endures forever.
Psalm 111:2-3, NRSV
This Week: pray for public servants. Submit your prayer to The Upper Room Living Prayer Center or share it in the comment section below.
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Saints, Inc.:
This week we remember Clare of Assisi (August 11).
Lectionary Readings
(Courtesy of Vanderbilt Divinity Library)
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Father was fond of saying: “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps.” Being raise in the city, I could never figure out what bootatraps were. So, when things got tough enough for me, I grasped hold of the hand of Jesus. (Father had not told me about Jesus.) And together we pulled me out of that quagmire.
When I was teaching, it hit me: From the time we are little we are told, “You can do it– yourself.”
Then at some point, God comes along, and says, “Child– let me. Let me do for you as you cannot do for yourself.”
And we struggle so hard with that idea.
Hmm . . . I am afraid my ancestors were a bit more mundane.
“It’s gonna stick like that!” “You’re gonna put an eye out!” “Don’t touch– HOT!”
And yet we made faces, shot rubber bands and touched the hot stove.
And what came from that was a living, human example of grace. Love, forgiveness– and grace.