Brown is Beautiful

Minority life can be one of the greatest redeeming instruments of God, for how much healing is there for the one who leans into what God may be teaching through the amalgam of emotions that is felt in one instance of feeling Different?

Most of us aren't even aware of those emotions. We've learned how to survive. We've acquired a certain Black Pride that cloaks us with false security and a sense of superiority for what makes us different. But Black Pride does not transform us into Christ-likeness. Christ broke down the wall of hostility. Black Pride supports those who would rebuild it.

Why do I bring this up? It's an awkward subject. Who wants to talk about feeling and being different? I avoided it during my first couple years in the Navigators (while I was a student and while I was on staff.) Actually, on staff, I've been able to avoid it because I work with mostly people of color.

Well, a few weeks ago, the Lord showed me that I have been living with a gaping wound related to the color of my skin. He showed me that since I was 8 I've been believing that my brown skin is not beautiful. I grew up believing that light-skinned people (whether black, Hispanic, Asian, or white) were luckier, more beautiful, and more apt to having a better life than I was. I envied them. And I hated my own appearance.

And while Christians would you use Psalm 139 to affirm my beauty, it was always linked to who I really am on the inside. That's what really matters, right? They never emphasized the skin God made me in.

And you may wonder what led to such a false belief. Without going in great detail and to spare those who contributed to it, it was pronounced over me as child. "You are not as beautiful as _________."

I hadn't realized I struggled with self-image. I suppressed these thoughts and yet lived out of them. And this affected the way I related with lighter folk, even in Navigators. Rather than enjoying people, I compared myself to them and competed with them. And lets not even get into situations where even Christian friends contributed to making me feel different. Even at STP, a friend came up to me and said, "Laura, I saw 7 black people today" because we were working in a predominately white area. And he;d say, "Laura, can I touch your hair"every time he saw me and then proceed to ask me many questions about my hair or about black people in general.

I usually responded with pride, but that didn't bring healing. A couple weeks ago, God brought up all the emotions I'd been holding in sense I was young. I cried my eyes out. Literally, ha ha!!! I sobbed like a baby! What a deep wound!

And the Lord graciously spoke. "Your brown skin is beautiful. I made your brown skin. And it is beautiful."

I broke the lie in prayer that my skin isn't beautiful, that I'm not beautiful and therefore undesirable/unloveable/unwanted and he gave me Psalm 139:13-16:

13For you formed my inward parts;
you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.
14I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.[a](R) Wonderful are your works;
my soul knows it very well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you,when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
16Your eyes saw my unformed substance;in your(U) book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there was none of them.

My mother is light-skinned. And for the first time I can receive her affirmation. God formed me in her womb. Both of us are beautiful. Me with my brown skin. She with her light skin. And guess who else is beautiful? The white people who surround you.

Don't miss what God may have for you wherever you are just because you are different. You are both beautiful, just as God made you, cultural differences and all!