Choosing Color

"I don't do white."

I felt the room around me kind of pause. The words were spoken to a young lady of color behind the counter of a fast food chain. She had just waited on some other customers of like skin tone and they were silent too. It was a bit awkward as I realized what just came out of my mouth.

You have to understand. I'm a 50+ Caucasian woman, somewhat overweight, obviously not a youth, and obviously suffering from a serious case of foot in mouth disease this day.

The young lady and I were trying to work through some logistics to get my order right. The restaurant only offered packaged dinners - I wanted something different and was trying to explain to this girl why I did not want a biscuit with my fried chicken.

And that's when the awkward statement came out of my mouth.

The long and short of it is, I'm giving up white foods. White flour, white sugar, white pasta, white rice, white potatoes. I'm sure there are some others I need to give up, but that's the big five for me. It's not that I can't have breads, sweets, pasta, rice and taters - I will just have the superior forms and not the inferiors that have become staples of the American diet.

So far so good. I don't know if I'll even be able to tell a difference six months from now, but I do know it won't hurt.

So yeah, I don't do white.

What's in a Name??

Her life was a wreck. She was sick. She was broke. In fact, she was broke because she was sick, and she was still sick thanks to a medical community who didn't have a clue about what was wrong with her, let alone how to help her. And she was desperate.

What do you do when you're desperate? You do desperate things. For her this meant throwing on enough powder or face paint or hair gel or whatever to fain wellness and mingling with a mob hoping she wouldn't be noticed.

Her purpose gave her strength enough to make her way through the crowd. She knew that if she failed she had nothing left but to go home and die. She was so sick she might not even make it home to die. This was it.

At last she found what she was looking for. She stooped down, reached out, then stood up . . . whole, and well.

There wasn't even enough time to feel a flicker of joy when her heart trembled at hearing an authoritative "Who?" She knew it was her. This wasn't supposed to happen, she had thought to do her deed and get out of of there.

A moment of confusion ensued as the mob stopped and tried to figure out what happened. Then the voice spoke again, "Somebody touched me". This time it was personal - she was being called out.

There was nothing to do but to come clean then and there. This dear nameless woman, fell trembling before the One who had made her, and then made her whole. All she could do was pour out her story before Him and hundreds of onlookers.

Jesus's next words not only gave her permission to rejoice in the new life she was given by touching the hem of His garment, but even more so in a new relationship with Him. Her faith in Jesus Christ, not some ethereal idea of something greater out there, but a real faith in the very real Jesus Christ, a faith that called her to action, had made her whole. The "Who" that was singled out as a "Somebody" was now a "Daughter", instructed to go in peace.


Taken from Luke 8:43-47

From Beemusement 101