Made in God's Image

Recently I was reading something that really opened my eyes. I was reading a blog that referred to a certain group of people as "spics" and very obviously meant it in a quite hateful manner. For those of you not familiar with racist terms, this is an extremely derogatory term for Hispanics. And for those of you who do not know...I am Hispanic. Now it's not unusual for me to hear such terms, and while I detest racism with a passion, I also do my best to not take it as a direct attack against me or my family. But this was different. This time, the words came from someone who used to be a close friend of mine. Momentarily, I felt physically ill and also felt as though someone had punched me in the stomach. This was someone who used to be my friend, who I used to hang out with, someone who I could call and chat with about anything. And here was this person being hateful against my culture, my heritage, where I come from...being hateful against me. And unfortunately, this was not something I was oblivious to with this person, as I can recall a conversation in which he absolutely refused to acknowledge that I was Hispanic. He told me that he would only see me as a white person. Being as naive as I can be, I truly thought that I could change him by being a light for Christ and so I developed a good friendship with him to try and be that example. But eventually I realized that only God can change a person. And after awhile, God showed me that the friendship was not healthy and I needed to "leave." And so I did. It's been a year since that friendship has ended, so I certainly did not think such a derogatory comment would make me feel the way it did. However, I did say momentarily. It was just a moment. I told myself, "consider the source" and stopped reading. I told Wes about what I read and he reminded me that this person hates himself and as a result, that hatred is spilled towards other people. And the thing is, Wes is not the only person to remind me of that. Another friend of mine, who also is former friends with this person, has reminded me of that as well.

I was hurt, but the moment was fleeting. I looked at pictures of my family and smiled. My parents, my siblings, my aunts and uncles, and my grandparents...my wonderful Hispanic family. Yes, I am part Irish and I love that background in me as well. After all, how many Irish-Bolivians do you meet? The closest I could find was the actor Henry Ian Cusick who is Scottish-Peruvian. We're "neighbors" on both accounts. It really is quite a random, but fun, combination. Bolivia is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. I remember so much of it from my 3 week trip with my grandfather and uncle. I am madly in love with that country. Of course it has its downfalls, but the landscape, the people, the food...that's where my family is from. I loved it when my grandfather, now passed away, would sit with me and Wes and tell us stories from when he was a little boy, which really fascinated Wes since the stories usually included llamas. :) So it baffles me how anyone can be so hateful against such "richness." I was hurt. But the moment was fleeting.

Today at church, the message reminded all of us that we are created in the image of God. This person, the one who feels so hateful against anyone not white, is created in the image of God. And he desperately needs salvation (which has always been a very hard topic of conversation with him since he really believes he is a Christian). And after yesterday's fleeting moment, today's sermon really nailed it in for me....I am created in the image of God. God knew what He was doing when He formed me in my mother's womb. It wasn't a random accident, some horrible mistake, that He chose a Bolivian woman to give birth to me. It wasn't some awful circumstance that He chose a Puerto Rican man to be the husband my mom needed and the father I needed. I am surrounded by Hispanic people in my family. We are one heck of a crazy bunch. And my Hispanic background has sometimes left me utterly confused when I am with Wes' family...who is most definitely not Hispanic. LOL My goodness, it's even completely foreign to me (no pun intended) to have a Thanksgiving meal that does not include some Bolivian food. The first time I had Thanksgiving dinner with Wes' family, I was confused. I looked at the table and thought to myself "well this is strange....." Where was the falso conejo? Where was the huminta? Where were the empanadas, the salteñas? How wonderful to have such diversity in my own family that I could wonder such things!!! This is where God placed me!!! God made me in His image...He saw that it was good...and He said "I know the perfect place for you!" He never promised me that I wouldn't face racism. I have faced it, and I'm sure I'll face it again in the future. But what an awesome reminder this morning...I, my crazy Hispanic self, am made in God's image. No ignorant derogatory word can ever strip me of that magnificent privilege.

Hello, my name is Mary, I am Hispanic...and I am made in God's image.

The Gift of Friendship

Since Wes and I have been married, we haven't really had many good & close friends. To be quite honest, we haven't had too many friends period. We had been good friends with the pastor and his wife at our home church until Wes had been accepted at Southern when they stopped talking to us. Come to find out, the pastor was afraid Wes would come back to try and take over the church (since the church was co-founded by his family) even though we had no plans to move back to Chicago. When we moved to Louisville, we thought we'd finally be able to develop some real friendships. After all, we had been told during orientation that these would be the friendships that would last a lifetime. Instead, we were met with incredible feelings of loneliness and some days I would sit at home and cry. I remember going to a cookout our stairwell (the apartment housing sections on campus were commonly referred to as stairwells) was having and two of the women were discussing wanting to see a particular movie. Since I, too, was interested in the movie, I thought it was a great opportunity to join in the conversation and get to know them some more. I also thought that maybe I could invite them out to a girls night out to see the movie. As soon as I joined the conversation, one of the women literally said to me "sorry, we're not interested in that movie." She looked at the other woman, and both walked away. I told Wes I was just going back to our apartment, where I cried my heart out.

We have a real heart for those who have struggled or are struggling with sexual sin. Wes had his own battles with pornography addiction that had once rattled our own marriage and now we just feel so compelled to reach out to those who are going through that. It's never been an area of ministry we keep quiet about, we're very open about our testimony at how God has pulled us through. However, we're very aware that our desires to help those in such a "taboo" subject has made it difficult for us to develop friendships. No, this is not an assumption (and certainly not for lack of trying to develop friendships)...we've actually been told this by people who said they were uncomfortable being around us because of what we wanted to do. Unfortunately, a lot of this came from our former church. I could probably list a laundry load of things that just tore us down piece by piece, but even thinking about it brings me to tears remembering how lonely and desperate we were for real friendships. And I can't imagine that listing it all out for people to read would really be edifying to anyone.

I also felt so bad for Wes, who had tried repeatedly to get to know the men and to develop an accountability relationship with someone, only to be shot down time and time again. He craved that intimacy as much as I did. There did come a point where there was a final straw and we left the church. We went church hunting for several months after that when we returned to a small church we had visited over a year prior. And that is where we have been since. We needed a place to heal, and we found it.

Tonight we had a cookout at our pastor's house. I took a few moments to just watch people without really listening to any conversations...and I just thought to myself how much I'm going to miss everyone when we move....I'm just so afraid we'll move and find ourselves in the same situation. I still am relearning how to open myself up again even though I may sometimes seem that I'm very open. We still sometimes find it hard to extend a simple lunch invitation because of the fear of being told once again "we're not comfortable being with you." But tonight, I looked all around me and laughed with them, chatted with them, told stories with them, ate with them, swam with them...and just felt incredible love for all of them. And here I am, typing while crying, thinking to myself that God, in His infinite love for me & Wes, has been faithful and put people in our lives who are truly our friends. They have never looked at us funny, they have never said an unkind word to us, they have called to see how we are, they cried with us when we suffered through our adoption loss, they ask us to eat pizza with them.... They have done things and said things to us that perhaps may seem to them as an every day "of course you would say that to someone" type of thing with a friend, but for us, mean everything because of how much we have craved to hear it. I don't know that any of them realize how much they have meant to us. I don't know how many of them realize how sad it makes us to know that we'll be leaving them in a year.

I sit here just so amazed and grateful at how God has worked in our lives once again. When we were lonely and felt we couldn't bear the hurt any more, He led us to a place where we have found healing and love and acceptance. We're not just member numbers 484 & 485, we are Wes & Mary King. We are part of the church family, part of the body of Christ...a couple with friends.