One of the things I admire about this world is the diversity it has. Earth is filled with people of different cultures, beliefs, ways of living, and even skin tones and ethnicities. We are able to offer something to each other, and unite us in ways that seem impossible. I just look at the Bible and how God desired people to fill the earth and spread out. Eventhough He created different languages and skin tones out of disobedience by the people who did not spread out like he wanted, it was ultimately something that God saw as good. On the flip side, with that diversity, divison and strife came, which at times leads to an us vs them mentality by most of the world.
Even I myself, have had this mentality about myself.
I understand diversity very well, being someone who is biracial and is a mix of two different cultures and customs, and growing up was definetly interesting. On the one side was the African American side, and at times I remember not fitting in as much with others of that ethnicity because I was not “fully like them,” nor did I act like them. On the other side was the Italian American side, and though most of my friends were more Caucasian, I remember people thinking because I was also part african American, that I fit into the thought patterns or stereotypes they had about people of that ethnicity, so they would associate me as to living life the same way as other african Americans that they knew. Even family life was a little different. On one side of my family, there was some confusion and discomfort with the fact that I was mixed and at first was not something that was widely accepted, also it was a different time then. Eventually people came around and things were and are fine, but in the back of my mind, I had thoughts that questioned what people truly did think.
To be quite honest, up until the race, I had unsettling thoughts about being mixed simply because I was perceived by some as maybe fitting the stereotypes that they had about part of my ethnicity, that even I myself did not agree with. For some reason, I was always associated with the not so good parts of my race and I really despised that. I would ask myself the question of “since when did race mean that I acted a certain way or am labeled as being a certain type of person?” I got to a point where I was upset with God for making me mixed.
However, since being on the race, God has allowed me to see the beauty of diversity and how it is meant to create unity which is what God wants, not division. Seeing people live differently, worship differently, eat differently has been amazing. Even more so, I have been able to share with them my culture and people actually receive it and implement some of it in their lives, just as I have implemented what they have given me in my life. God showed me and is still showing me how being mixed is a gift, that embodies how he desires to take things that are different and unite them in a way that honors and reflects him. He showed me how the way he created me and my skin tone was perfectly necessary for the type of ministry and people that he wants me to minister to in the middle east and south Asia. He showed me how me being mixed is a reflection of unity and wholeness. I celebrate the fact that I am mixed, but I celebrate the fact that this world he created is mixed and if led by Him, has they opportunity to create a visual representation of what the Kingdom of Heaven and life with Him will look like in the life to come.
If we can just stop for one moment, and look at our world and its diversity, and throw away all the stereotypes, and statistics, that are actually temporary, and will pass away in the end, and just see people as people and how God wants people to be seen, things would be different. If we could stop generalizing everybody off of the small amount of people who get it wrong and paint the wrong image of different types people, and look at the whole, things will be different. But until we do that, there will be constant strife and division, and a misunderstanding of our world and the people in it.
Being on the race, has shown me so much of life and the value of every life, and that people are pretty cool, yet misunderstood or misrepresented based off of the actions of few.
I emcourage us to look at this world and people differently, in light of how Christ wants us to look at it.
Sincerely,
Your mixed human
Dyl
