Colorblind? No.

Several weeks ago, on a trip to Walmart, my 3 year old said to the check-out lady, "I really like your colors. Your arm is pretty." My heart skipped a few beats as I looked up to see the response on her face. You see, this woman was African-American. I can't tell you how thankful I am that she understood my son was giving her a very high compliment. I have mulled this incident over and over in my mind. Certainly I am not the first parent with a preschooler who felt the need to audibly verbalize every thought in his precocious head. In looking for methods for explaining races to a preschooler, I came up discouraged and irritated.

It seems the prevailing thought is to teach children to be colorblind. How stupid. (Hang with me here.) That would be like teaching a child that all of his/her toys are green. Of course you could teach your child that everything is green, but she would clearly know that not everything is green and that you are not being forthright with her. One explanation I read proposed that perhaps we aren't different colors at all, but rather varying shades of the same color. I don't really know how I feel about that, so I put the thought on the back-burner. The fact of the matter is we are very afraid of race issues. Do you wonder what would happen if we quit fearing race issues and embraced our different skin colors? This is why I have decided to say a very firm "no" to the theory of teaching my child to be colorblind.

In every other area of life, be it flowers, trees, animals or food, my child is taught to embrace the creativity of our Creator. (Gen 1:27) Why would the subject of race be treated any differently? People come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors...and this is a wonderful and beautiful fact! What a creative God I have! A God who does not make us all the same, but creates beautiful hues of skin color. Gorgeous browns that have the sheen of silk, rich olives that radiate in the sun, lovely yellows that set off the richest of colors in a way that no other skin tone possibly could. One popular Christian speaker says, "Let's be color-BLESSED."

Our family sponsors a beautiful young lady who lives in a Kenyan orphanage. We love Esther dearly and have the opportunity to be her 'parents' by way of financially caring for her, sending letters of encouragement and ensuring that her health, her education and her physical needs are met. We pray for her continually and have pictures of her throughout our home. On Mother's Day of this year I received a letter from my Esther. The letter still brings me to tears and is kept with all of her other letters and pictures alongside Jackson and Bryant's baby books. The sentence that gets me every single time I read it is this, "I love you very much, my good parents and I love my brothers, Jackson and Baby Bryant." Jackson asks about Esther quite often. He once asked, "Can my sister have different colors on her than me?" I answered him with an emphatic "Yes!"

After much, much thought on this subject I decided to learn from my child. He sees different skin colors as beautiful. He sees them a blessing and a thing to embrace. Why explain things in any other manner? When my children question me about race my answer will be simple. My answer will be, "God, in His love and creativity, made us all different and that is a very good thing."

For by Him, all things were created... Col 1:16

Crudites

For as long as I can remember, my mom always served a vegetable tray at our holiday dinners. The tray included carrots, celery, cherry tomatoes, pickles and olives. Sometimes mom would even give me the opportunity to arrange the tray. We would usually snack on the 'relish tray' as we waited for the main meal to be served. It was not until I was planning my annual Bastille Day meal that I learned this quaint relish try had a much more impressive name- Crudites. (Pronounced- croodeetay) Doesn't everything sound more refined, expensive and exciting when in French?

Several days ago we were driving to the grocery store for a normal, ho-hum trip. As we were getting into the car, my imaginative Jackson said, "Let's 'tend that your car is a spaceship and we're going to the sky!" Suddenly the ho-hum trip became a much more exciting adventure. This trip was complete with shooting stars, friendly aliens and colorful planets surrounding us. Imaginative 3 year olds sure can make the mundane much more fun! What a great lesson for me. Why do everyday tasks have to be ho-hum? It's sort of like those raw carrots; if you call it a crudite that raw carrot suddenly seems much more exciting than merely a raw carrot.

Everyday has the potential to be extraordinary, even if it is filled with just regular tasks. If you know me, you know that I do not live in a fantasy world nor do I advocate living outside the realm of reality. However, as I have discovered of late, it becomes very easy to fall into a rut of routine. I'll admit, it is awfully tricky to make folding clothes a whole lot of fun, but as Mary Poppins said, "In every job that must be done there is an element of fun, you find the fun and....snap!...the job's a game." It's all in what you make of it. Raw carrots or crudites?