God made me mixed and He made me mixed up

Raw
Pain unspoken
Unrecognized

Jesus, I'm broken and it's still raw. She's dark already?! Filipino, Chinese, Hawaiian, Vietnamese You're not really Japanese. We don't want mono-racial people there. Right side Japanese, left side Chinese. Prove that you belong. Don't mess up everything we have worked for. Wear stripes to make your skin lighter. Do you speak? You're the reason my language is dying. 

What are you?! Not enough.


Doubts can force us to sidestep pain- coping, but not really healing. 

"There's no pain so cutting,
No battle as in vain
As the constant battle
to avoid the pain" - Justin McRoberts


Loneliness

I don't belong to either group. I don't feel whole because they lower their expectations of me. I'm torn between 4 worlds, looking for 1 home. Not even other mixed people can fully understand and know my experiences and pain. I will always feel unknown.

Tension of privilege and rejection leads to isolation and loneliness, leaving us powerless. 

I'm looking for affirmation and acceptance. I'm afraid that this place- even this safe place will reject me too. Then who will identify with me? Who will understand my pain? Who will walk with me on this journey to wholeness?

Do I have to prove that I'm mixed enough?

Welcome Home

We have a choice to invite God into our whole ethnicity and pain. 

Invitation. Invitation into my pain, life, and mixed experiences. Invitation into full healing, understanding, acceptance. Invitation to be fully known by the Father who created me- the one who intentionally made me this way. It wasn't a mistake. It wasn't random. It is beautiful.

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new


You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us


Forgiveness
Healing
Letting go

Letting go of holding onto pain to prove that I belong here. Releasing my parents from the expectations that they should've known. Forgiving them for the misunderstanding turned rejection. Accepting the Yonsei experience of being cut off from a culture. Lamenting a nation's history of racism and injustice that shamed, hated, and forced my family to forget. Crying for the brothers who just want to be one- to choose even at the sacrifice of the other. Repenting of using a relationship to feel whole- to be white instead of half. Recognizing the fears of bringing these pains and brokenness to all relationships- to never being known even in the closest intimacy. Combatting lies with truth that loneliness and pain don't have to remain.

I believe God can heal me. I believe God sees me whole- fully me. Japanese and Chinese, He created me. In His image, I was created. Fully both.

After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. 

When we stand in front of our maker at the end of the Ages, I will be mixed.

Too Close to Home

I come home after a night of games with grown up friends in Stockton, to find this: shattered glass next to a car I don't recognize. Is this what I think it is? Whose car is this?
I go into 'ok I think I should do something about this' mode. Ring the downstairs doorbell. Call Lauren. Should I call the cops? Why aren't they answering? Katherine isn't home. Should I knock on the neighbor's door. What time is it?
When I see 2 people walking down the street- students. Maybe drunk. One guy carrying a skateboard, and another carrying a Commerce street sign. Oh great, really?!
They find their car window smashed and something taken from the back seat. And with a stolen street sign in their hand, they call the police...oh Stockton. oh Pacific students.

Part of me doesn't know what to think. This is normal, this happens here. They could have been smarter- they probably left something in the back seat to steal. They deserved it. Should I have done more? Even if the victim was a thief, should I have intervened? I went up the stairs, slightly appalled and confused.
This is my home space. This is where I park my car. This could have been me. When does the fear of not feeling safe in your home affect you? What do you do when sometimes you feel helpless? I don't want to write this off because it wasn't my car or my house. My best friend reminded me that I don't have to. Validated in this being too close to home.

In the daytime, with a roommate back from home- safer, apathetic, distancing...still