Change starts with me.
"So we are Christ's ambassadors; God is making his appeal through us. We speak for Christ when we plead, "Come back to God!" 2 Corinthians 5:20 NLT
I am Christ's ambassador. Definition - an accredited diplomat sent by a country as its official representative to a foreign country.
God is sending me into a foreign land. There are feelings and emotions I don't always understand, pain that people feel, anger, frustration, the indignation that I can’t possibly comprehend at times. Despite that, God expects me to go into unchartered territory. As terrifying as that can be, practice 2 Corinthians 5:20 as I enter those places and be willing to plead with people to come back to God. He also expects me to practice James 5:19 and be quick to listen and slow to speak. The only way I can do that is I have to start with me.
"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." Mark 12:30-31
I have to start with me. I have to take time and reflect on me. Journal and talk to God about all that I feel, transparently speak to Him. He sees all of me, anyway. Let it all out with God. After that, ask God for wisdom in what to do next. My goal is to please him, and I don't always do a good job, but I know it will be worse if I don't seek his guidance through scriptures. I then find a safe place to work through my heart, and as I do that, I can't help to reflect on how God transformed my life. It doesn’t matter at this point how dark something may seem, this space I am now in, leads me to find hope for my self and the people I see.
At the age of 23, I was a self-righteous person, a callous woman with little compassion for other people's pain.
Before you judge me, let me tell you about some of my experiences:
As a kid I was often teased for been black; the color of my skin. The teasing came from all kinds of kids. Yes, even the dark skin kids will tease if, they were a shade littler than me.
I remembered growing up and going to the grocery store and hearing the manager say "pélale el ojo a la negrita" which means "keep an eye on the little black girl."
As a child, I saw a lot of physical and emotional abuse around me. My high school did not hold a graduation ceremony because of "Operation Just Cause," which was the U.S. invasion of Panama. Everything was canceled. I lived through a city-wide riot in the aftermath of that operation.
I was not hired to work in some places when I wanted to work so badly because I did not fit their standard of a "beauty", even though I was hardworking, polite and had good grades.
When I moved to the U.S., I heard things like "You are a different kind of black" since I did not understand African Americans' past.
I once was preparing to attend a costume party at my husband job; I shared my ideas with my friend and ask for her opinion as well. I still hear her say Queen Nefertiti you should be. Since I had no idea who she was, she laughed and said, “Oh wow! "I can't believe you don't know. She is an important black queen". From my perspective, people in the U.S. assume that I should know everything there is to know about black people…especially black people.
At age 19, a man who could see that I was naive and inexperience took advantage of me a young girl who grew sheltered. As we were going out, I found out he was married and, when I questioned him, his response was, "Well, you never asked." When I met, my husband can tell you the first questions I asked him was, are you married?
Once when shopping, I saw my husband get mad, I was surprised I had never seen him like that. I purchased something at a store, and the sales associate thoroughly treated me with no respect. He practically threw the package at me as if I was a dog.
While at the grocery with my baby, I went to the register, I thought I had the exact change, but when I counted, I realized that I was missing a few cents so had to give her a bigger bill. In Spanish, she said to the other cashier, "This woman (she assumed because of my skin color that I had no Hispanic background) can't even count and is now messing me up." In pride and with indignation, I said to her the amount she needed to return to me in Spanish. Obviously, she was shocked! She did not expect that a black woman could speak Spanish at all. She proceeded to talk to me as if she had never said anything about me.
My husband and I got into an argument because he seemed to suddenly always correct my English. I didn't know where this was coming from, and I was becoming frustrated. As we talked, he shared with me that when he was on his work (he was a submariner), and I would call on the telephone, he saw the guys answer the phone and say things like "I can't understand a word she is saying as they laughed and hang up the phone." When he asked who it was, they said some woman with an accent. He knew it was me… there was no one else there married to a Panamanian.
I think I will stop there, hopefully that paints a picture, to say the least, anyone that wanted to talk about how much they suffered or have a pity party about their suffering was not something I was interested in listening to.
In 1996 when my husband and I moved to San Diego, I was asked to engage in personal Bible studies. The only reason I did that was that I did not have many friends, and I was feeling pretty lonely for friends.
The first goal was to seriously read my Bible, to allow it to speak to my heart, and to decide to live by God's standard. Only God was able to soften my callous heart. Scriptures like Ezekiel 36:26-27 represent what saying yes to God, and His word did for me.
"I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."
Faith does come from hearing God's message (Romans 10:17). I saw my confidence grow as God showed me that I was a wretched woman who saw the flaws and wrongdoing of others but had minimal regard for my shortcomings and wrongdoings. God's power helped me to forgive people I never thought I could forgive. It does not end there, it also taught me how to hate sin but love people. This is truly a miracle that He performs daily in my heart by reminding me that I am a sinner. I must wrestle with forgiving, to not hold a grudge, etc. Is a daily battle that sometimes is not won.
Oh, how I desire to say that the following scripture represents me.
"When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd." Matthew 9:36 NVI.
I am grateful that I can turn to this scripture every time my heart becomes hard. Remembering that my hard heart only kept me lost.
This week I attended one of my aunt's funeral; she died at 71. She left an amazing impact. She chose with her husband to raise her family in an area where it is not the most luxurious to reach out to her community. Many at her memorial service referred to her as "mami" in such an endearing way. Over and over, I heard them sharing about how much she loved the women and men in her life, regardless of their status in life. Three months ago, I had another aunt passed away, who also left a fantastic impact on those around her. Their death reminded me that death is inevitable, how we will die is unknown to us. What matters is what legacy we leave behind, how we carried ourselves. Did we consider others above ourselves? (Philippians 2:3) Did we do everything we did as working for the Lord? (Colossians 3:23) Did we make a difference by not conforming to the patterns of this world? (Roman 12:2) Did we live with the understanding that our freedom does not mean engaging in harmful behaviors? (1 Peter 2:16) Did we allow God's love to help us overcome our fears, so we stop punishing others or ourselves internally? (1 John 4:18)
I wish I could say I have done all those things and more correctly, but I haven't. I can say for sure that I am continuing to allow God to renew and transform my mind, and that starts every time I am willing to see the plank in my eye first (Matt7: 5).
A few months ago, I read this passage, Luke 22:31-32 NIV.
"Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."
And it dawned on me that Satan wants to sift me as wheat. But Jesus prayed for me, that's why God shows me the things I need to repent of even though I do not like what I see. But once I see it and repent, I must strengthen my brothers and sisters with the lesson I learned.
During this pandemic, with everything going on in our world, I have been afraid of so many things. Recently, my fear is a racist hurting, more like someone killing one of my beautiful men because of their skin color. God showed me I fear the inevitable, which is death; I need to remember that I am a disciple of Jesus. I need to focus on loving my family while we are in this world together. As a mother, train my children in the way they shall go and trust God with the rest, live one day at a time. Satan's trick was to keep me fearful and beat down. He knows that the unknown can paralyze down in my soul. I am grateful that God showed me that fearing the unknown puts in my back in a place where hope can not grow.