This examination of my heart isn't fun or comfortable. It has kept my sin and failure ever before me. Which is a good thing, but it's so ugly and all I want to do it turn from it, to deny it's existence in my heart.

But I can't.

However, I have come to recognize, with a blazing new clarity, the miracle and amazing gift of the Cross. Jesus was fully aware of all this ugliness, this sin, this darkness in me yet He went to the Cross for me. I'm completely flabbergasted by His willingness to save such an ugly hearted sinner.

But I also need to figure out where these prejudices stem from and what I need to do to get deal with them, to push through my erroneous thinking. I don't like that part of me is less than Christ-like towards others. Have I allowed society to cloud my thinking? What in me struggles to accept those that aren't like me?

I was reading an article today written by a black woman about how a lot of women, but especially black women, have certain ideals of what they want their boyfriends and husbands to be and look like.

As a side note, I think this some of this stems from the proven fact that college educated black women outnumber college educated black men 3 to 1. As most people do, these women want to be with someone like themselves. Whether that means someone with a similar ethnicity/history, goals, salary, hobbies, or experiences their desire for comfortableness and similarity often causes them to look for what they think this "rightness" looks like, but their perceptions don't always lend to being a true representation. People are unexpected. There is no "typicalness" to bestow on every person, just our own stereotypes and prejudices. What is right about one isn't about another.

But I digress. The author goes on to say that this having standards is not necessarily a good or bad thing unless these women are dismissing great men, as many often do, because they don't look like the picture of the ideal man they hold in their heads. Something, she says, she knows from experience. She reflected on how she almost missed out on an amazing opportunity to get to know and date the sweetest and funniest man because of his looks. She said his dreadlocks were an immediate deterrent because she first wondered if he had a job, any education, goals, etc.

How often do I do this? How often have I not been intentional about meeting others because they don't appear to be people I would connect with? What fears and/or insecurities do I hold that cause me to stay away? From where is the root of pride that makes me think my college education, car, house, clothes, accomplishments, goals, etc. gives me the power to treat others as less than myself because they may not be as "educated" or "well off" as I am? And when it comes down to it, how educated or well off am I really?

And where in all the self focus is the love of Christ?