By His Grace I Can.

To say that the last few months has been hard would be an understatement.  COVID-19, school closures and social distancing has exacerbated an already stressful time.  My husband and I agree that this season has been the most challenging that we've ever gone through as a couple.  It has pushed us to the limits and required our all.  We both struggle with our mental health and since March it has often felt like we've been taking turns propping the other one up. At the end of March, we started moving to a different house across town.  After we got a truck full of our furniture moved over (thanks to angel ward members!), we thought it'd be nice to slowly ferry the rest.  We joke that in reality it was more like giving birth for 2 1/2 months.  Day after day, week after week, we were worn out and barely hanging on. The constant chaos, noise, quarreling and messes were relentless.  Add in a series of unfortunate events with moving and settling in and my anxiety was amping up.

I am about as naive and sheltered as they come. I grew up in an extremely Anglo-Saxon, white, middle class city with a VERY narrow religious realm. I was primarily unfamiliar with varying demographics. I knew that I hated “racist” jokes and comments and felt more comfortable with my Mexican friends than with many other people in the school. But it wasn’t until a multicultural class in college that I started tapping in to what truly was wrapped up in racism. My first time hear ing the term “white privilege” made me very uncomfortable and defensive. But as a decade and a half has gone by I am realizing more and more what that privilege really means, how it affects MILLIONS of people on a daily basis and how racist I am without even knowing it. It feels like this awakening for me is one step forward and three steps back and too frequently involves inserting my foot in my mouth. Regardless, what has happened in the United States since day ONE regarding minorities and particularly African-A