My heart breaks to confess that a few years ago I was one saying why can’t #AllLivesMatter? It took a brave friend willing to risk our friendship to put me in my place. It caused a deep wedge in our friendship. At one point she actually called me racist. It hurt me at my core. I cried for days. Maybe weeks. I lost a lot of trust and love for her. I WAS WRONG. 

I believe the root of it for me was you either had to be for BLM or for the military. You either had to be for BLM or for the police officers. I thought recognizing their pain and suffering was going to lead to losing some of my security (aka privilege) or admitting I didn’t work hard for all that I accomplished. How much more selfish could I be? My hard work results in every potential opportunity to succeed. Others can work even harder and still don’t have a fair chance. As a white woman, the first time I said BLM was hard. It was humbling myself and falling to my knees to say I didn’t get it right before. It also meant having to repent for my sin and FEELING the weight for all the times I have subconsciously been racist. It’s recognizing I can still be racist today without even always realizing it. 

The best way I can think to explain this subconscious racism is if I were to walk into the cafeteria on the first day of anything and there were only 2 seats left - one at a table full of white girls and one at a table full of black girls, I am naturally more likely to sit at the table of white girls. Does this make me a terrible person? No. But my dad always told me that so much of being successful in life comes down to who you know, and when this kind of situation happens again and again and again and again it equates to not having enough black folks in leadership positions or living in our communities. 

This struggle makes me so much more thankful for Jesus. That day my friend told me about BLM we ended the conversation by agreeing to just pray about it and allow God to reveal the other side. Slowly, God broke down the hardness of my heart and showed me the truth. He also forgave me for my sin and is now willing to use me for the cause. Jesus would be saying BLM, too. He knows each and every hair on each of us. He gets it