Member-only story
My white friend and her black pastor
How sharing stories changed hearts and minds
Note: I painted the image above years ago. Hands of all shades embrace and support each other to make a living cross from which the Holy Spirit takes flight.
I have a white friend who I call my other mother. She took care of me when I was going to graduate school at Purdue, when I was homesick and sad. She is about 3 years younger than my own mother, and a wonderful person.
We never talked about race while I was at Purdue, even though I encountered racism there. The recent events though sparked a conversation between us.
During the course of the conversation, she told me about her black pastor.
“He was one of the pastors at my church in Indiana,” she said. “He wasn’t the head pastor, he was one of two associate pastors. I got to know him well because he led a Bible study that I went to.”
“That must have been interesting,” I said. “How did others feel about having a black pastor?”
“It was mostly other blacks who had a problem,” she said, with a laugh. “When he first joined our church, he told us that some of his black friends asked what he was doing pastoring at a white church. And he said that’s where God had led him.”
