Dear Brethren,

I’m a creative professional and certified nerd relearning how to love my Savior, and myself.

I’m also figuring out ways to survive Earth by exploring biblical teachings to manage my suffering, audit my ego and grow my faith.

Hope and Hardships is engineered from my painful and flawed journey as a brown-skinned human, woman, immigrant, U.S. citizen and complex trauma survivor.

So, here is where I’ll get honest about my turbulent journey with Christ, along with the curveballs that life has thrown my way as a darker-skinned woman who’s stuck inside a broken and biased bubble.

Also, from time to time, I’ll interview friends, acquaintances and strangers who wish to share their two cents on how they create community, or how they live a life fueled by faith, joy and love.

In America, I’m constantly racialized, and it saddens me when so many humans self-racialize as an “Asian,” “Black” or “White” thing.

I’ve rejected racialization since childhood and one day, I’ll write an essay re: why it is insulting when a stranger racializes me by stuffing my personhood into an imaginary race.

For now, I’ll simply state that the constructs of race, racism and antiracism will not be sustainable within a few decades due to the rapidly changing phenotypical landscape we are witnessing in America and abroad; complexion will soon be the name of the game. I’ve stated this for decades, however, when you look like me, no one takes you seriously until you’re dead.

Learn why skin tone bias—not race—will be important in America here.

Hope and Hardships is about starting over and doing better.

I believe the Creator loves human diversity and it seems that most humans do not, especially those who identify as Christians.

I do not believe human diversity is a coincidence and so, it would be in the best interest of our Souls to examine our pigmentation and phenotypic biases before we transition to the Afterlife—a realm that most likely isn’t designed to be segregated by skin tones or other superficialities that humans idolize on Earth.

Thank you for coming along on this journey,

Your highly melanated neighbor