Do you ever wonder where your people came from? A lot of people can trace their folks right back to royals or a specific region, but I am betting most are like me a mix of a whole lot of different places.
All my life I have been told that much of our family was Native American (my Great Grandpa Allison, my Great Grandma Lollis, my Grandpa Arrowood). There were stories of them coming off the Cherokee Indian Reservation. It seemed to make sense as some of our skin browned easily, and a couple of generations before them came from the mountains of North Carolina.
My Granny Lollis loved telling of how her Grandma Dunn was a “full-blooded injun.” Granny said that she had long dark hair and was almost black. I was just with a cousin who remembered her granny telling her that they were somewhat afraid of Grandma Dunn because she was as dark as an African American.
Some time ago a friend gave me the Ancestry DNA test. I took it and was quite shocked when none of my DNA came back as Native American. I’ve talked to several other cousins online who took the DNA test, and none of them showed Native American either. One in California who was told the same story about Grandma Dunn.
As it turns out, our dark skin and characteristics most likely came from elsewhere, and I am perfectly okay with that because I believe that underneath our human costume God lives and doesn’t care about those kinds of things. What matters is our love for one another and how we show that.
I believe that we are all actually brothers and sisters and came from the same exact source. If you believe the story in the Bible in Genesis, then you should believe that too. Jesus wasn’t a white man. He was a Middle Eastern man with dark skin. The same kind of man that many of us fear as a terrorist today.
I wish everyone would go out and have their DNA tested. It would probably surprise many to learn that the very people they are so afraid of are their cousins somewhere down the line.
We need more love, less fear and to dig deep inside ourselves and move past what is on the outside. On the inside, there is just one Source of our breath, and that is a God who has the power to help us let go of the fear of our neighbors and see ourselves as He sees us which is as ONE.
Jesus called us to love our neighbor as ourselves, and frankly, I think we are missing the message.
It seems a bit contradictory to me for people to profess a love of Christ and yet fear their fellow man. At what point do you believe that God takes care of you and loves you and you have nothing to fear? At what point do you look in the mirror and see that to reject another is to deny God himself?
WWJD?
Lots of love to you!
Always,
Kim
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