Mommas, I created this space for you. A safe place to share our journeys, which includes all the struggles, joys, heartaches, and celebrations. I’ve been intentional about promoting authenticity and vulnerability—all with a spirit of non-judgment, all centered in love.

My purpose and mission is to lift you up and brighten your day. But it is also to feel your pain and speak into it.

All pain, not just some pain.

All pain, not just the pain we are comfortable talking about.

All pain, not just the pain that is easier to relate to.

All pain, not just the pain we want to hear about.

Which means I must and need to speak into the pain of racial injustice. To be honest, I should have done this a very long time ago because mommas of color didn’t just start feeling their pain this week, or last month, or a few years ago. Their pain has been a constant.

I don’t have an excuse for my delay, but I do have a truth about it. And that is that I didn’t start waking up to the daily, insidious, systemic racism still going on in this country until a few years ago. Since then, I’ve been listening, reading, watching, and observing. Doing my best to come to a better understanding.

What I learned right out of the gate is how blind I was to my own complicity to the problem. Mostly out of pure ignorance. I just thought I was a kind person who loved everyone, and somehow that was a free pass to any wrongdoing.

Actually, my free pass is my white privilege. And until I understood white privilege, I couldn’t understand the real pain people of color experience day in and day out. And until I started to understand the real pain of what they are experiencing, I couldn’t see where my inaction or silence or ignorance fueled the problem.

If you’ve made it this far reading my post and feel like walking away because I am getting “political,” I kindly ask you to stick the rest out. This is not a political post because being a mother raising up babies is not political. Loving our children and sacrificing our lives for them is not a blue or red experience. It’s a Gospel experience. It’s about loving our neighbor—every neighbor regardless of any differences, and precisely because of our differences. At least that’s the message I’ve interpreted from the Jesus I’ve come to know.

Motherhood is motherhood, and all mommas deserve to be seen and heard for their journeys. All mommas deserve a voice to share their hardships. All mommas need other mommas to love and support them. All mommas need other mommas to encourage and comfort them.

And as a white momma with white kids living a privileged life free of so many fears and burdens and discriminations and oppressions, I must stand alongside my black mommas and speak into the pain of racial injustice. Love calls me to do so.

I must be an ally as they cry out for help. Love calls me to do so.

I must be an advocate and fight for their rights. Love calls me to do so.

I must be a wingwoman defending their dignity. Love calls me to do so.

The truth is, I don’t know how to do this perfectly. I will say the wrong things, maybe do the wrong things. But I’m learning. I’m committed to swallowing my pride when getting called out so I can do better and be better.

Some type of action is better than no action. I believe taking any action—even if imperfect, is love-driven. No action is fear-driven.

Earlier this week, I watched a video of a black father teaching his black son how to survive a policeman pressing a knee into his neck. “This is how you survive, son. Relax. Breathe. This is what you do to stay alive.”

As a mom, I CANNOT even pretend to imagine what it feels like to have to teach a child such a lesson. And I am hellbent on doing my part to make sure this vile reality changes.

I am pissed. I am heartbroken. I am disgusted. I am overwhelmed.

And I plan on continuing to sit in this anger and devastation until it becomes part of my DNA. Because as a courageous black momma told me this week, doing so will help me understand what Black Americans have been feeling for centuries.

Until then, I’m still just a kind person who loves everyone.

Black mommas need more than this. All people of color deserve more than this.

Gospel love is a verb. It’s high time for me to walk the talk. I have no excuse to forget; I even have a tattoo to remind me. As if my faith in Jesus isn’t enough.

xo