My niece, Kelly-Kelly says the cutest things! Today I received an email from my sister Nancy with this little excerpt in it. It was a conversation that her and Kelly-Kelly had on their way to taking her to school. In Nancy’s own words:

“Get this one, on the way to taking Kelly to school today, we were talking about black people and she said, "Mommy, don't get mad at me for saying this but, they're kind of like a snickers bar or a milky-way bar and we are the milk. They are brown and we are white." I about died. I didn't want to laugh too hard. It was cute though. One of her good friends is black and we talk about it quite often it seems lately. She realizes they are just like us. It's very cute. I thought I would share. She says the funniest things sometimes.”

I had to laugh! As Art Linkletter used to say, “Kids say the darnedest things.” This is just one of them. I also remember another story from my own son Aaron when he was just a little tyke, only a few years old. 

We were doing our shopping in the Fry’s grocery store in Hayward, CA. one early morning, when we passed a mother and a very young daughter, about Aaron’s age, sitting in the cart. They were black and of course we are white. We were in a church that also had black sisters and brothers, but there were not many and I guess that Aaron hadn’t really noticed the difference up until that point. Anyway, that morning while we were passing each other in the shopping carts, he noticed, because as we were passing them, I looked up to smile at them and at the same time, as Aaron was staring at the little girl in the other cart, to my dismay and horror, Aaron looked at her and yelled out, “Chocolate face!” I didn’t know what to do. I was so shocked that I could hardly move or say anything. We mothers looked at each other and smiled and I tried to apologize for my son’s comment without knowing what to say or what, if anything was appropriate. We parted ways and continued to walk down the isle, as I had the discussion with my sons about certain things not being polite to say and the sort…

Upon turning down the next isle, we met up with the same dear mother and daughter again. As we mothers passed and smiled and at each other, her daughter looked over at Aaron, with the same stoic look on her face that he had had earlier, and she yelled out, “Strawberry face!” By then, both her mother and I were laughing hysterically!!! It was one of those precious moments. I have no idea whether the little girls mother helped her come up with the retort or not, I don’t believe so because it was too spontaneous, but it was precious anyway. It was a great reminder that God’s kingdom is made up of many beautiful colors and shades and we are all needed to bring beauty and understanding to our lives. As the old song says, ”Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight...” 

That night I called some of our friends from the church and invited them and some of our 'black' friends for dinner! What a wonderful night it was with many lessons learned for all of us. I don’t remember what we had to eat that night, but it would have been wonderful to have had Snickers and milk for dessert!!!