Back of the Bus...Please

Growing up in South Mississippi I have witnessed and, if I'm completely honest, been a part of many acts of racism. I grew up listening to most of the adults around me spit out racial slurs while they exalted themselves and their race as supreme. I remember thinking at a very young age how ridiculous and inhumane this really was, but at the same time I was conforming to the mindset. When I was very young I would look at black children, and because of what I had heard my entire short life, I would think they were bad so I was somewhat afraid to get close to them...then one day when I was about 12 I actually met several people who laid all those fears and biases to rest. I began to see people's hearts and not their skin color.

I remember studying the Civil rights movement and hearing about the cruelty of discrimination and segregation ... It did something to me when I thought about another human being who was forced to sit in the back of the bus, or drink from a separate water fountain...I grew to hate racism. I could only sympathize with them because being a young white girl I had never, nor did I ever expect to experience such discrimination. UNTIL....

... I got saved at a church where all races were welcome, it was part of their "vision", having a church in South MS that wasn't segregated. This church was very diverse and it was great to see people of all races come together in harmony...NO "sitting in the back of the bus" there.  The motto was "Reaching for those that nobody wants; God turns them into people that everybody wants" It was refreshing. UNTIL....

 I came out...and SUDDENLY (dramatic music)  I could no longer have the "Living Water" but I was quarantined...isolated...rejected! I found myself being forced to drink from a separate water fountain....I was now an abomination, detested by those who had somehow become superior to me. My "robe" had been reduced to filthy rags while theirs remained stainless and white! I was reduced to an imbecile who no longer deserved or even had any right to Jesus Christ...much less come into His church.

My sympathy for those who had suffered from intolerance and prejudice was quickly turning into empathy, suddenly I could somewhat relate to how it must have felt to be turned away... to be hated because of something that you cannot change... to be judged and condemned because you were different. I found myself ducking and almost cowering down because of the shame they heaped on me. They quickly segregated me, warning others to stay away or catch the gay....This started to get to me...maybe I was inferior...maybe God rejects me too...maybe the Living Water is off limits to my kind... It was then that I refused to allow my life to be reduced to sipping Evian!

I AM a Christian and I will not allow some "holier than Thou" christian chauvinist to force me to the back of the bus! I WILL NOT drink from a separate water fountain!!! Because NOTHING neither life nor death, nor angels nor demons (nor religious supremacists) can separate me from Christ!

Day after day I talk with young people who are tormented by these sectarians and their bigotry that condemns them to a life VOID of Christ, and doomed for hell! If I hear another fanatic shout REPENT at me, or anyone else for that matter, one more time so help me they themselves will be repenting as they TURN and run because I might just lose ALL my religion (pun intended)... Jesus Christ called us to love NOT condemn.... NO one has the right to try and take my Savior away from me, because if I recall correctly that "Living Water" lives inside of me and I shall NEVER thirst again because He will NEVER leave NOR forsake me-- How about you shout I LOVE you and so does Jesus, wait better yet  embrace people don't say I LOVE you show them.

Just Bb