“Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—“ John 1:12 NIV
“Are we going to green grandma’s or white grandma’s house first?”
My wife, Megan and I were married in Jamaica in June 2006, only to find out that the U.S. had stopped recognizing foreign marriage licenses issued after January 1, 2006 because of 9/11. So, when Megan went to have her driver’s license updated she was informed be were not recognized as being married by the U.S. and by extension, the great State of Tennessee.
No problem! We’ll get married at the courthouse. So we dutifully filled out our application for our marriage license, listing all required information including our mother’s maiden names. In which space I wrote the last name ‘Mullins.’ As the County Clerk’s office representative reviewed my application she saw that I had written my mother’s maiden name as Mullins. She then patiently, condescendingly and helpfully said, “no baby, what was your momma’s last name before she got married?” (Now to my Southern friends, please insert a strong southern drawl here with the terseness of a Southern lady correcting her kids.). I replied; “My mother’s last name was Mullins. That explains a lot doesn’t it?” Without missing a beat that sweet southern lady said, “baby, this is East TN! That ain’t no big deal.” Yikes!
“Accept one another, then, just as Christ accepted you, in order to bring praise to God.” Romans 15:7 ESV
So there you have it. My family identity of ‘Mullins’ involves a wide swath. Mother and father’s sides of the family. I often jokingly would ask my parents things like: “Did you happen to grow up in the same house?” To which my mother would quickly snap back, “Myron! Stop that. You know better.” The joys of being a boy-mom. Turns out my parents were something like 6th cousins, which I have yet to understand how they figured that out. Well, here we are with the occasional unwanted extra appendage. Was our family reunions the predecessor to the modern-day dating sites? Kidding!!!
So, we had two sets of grandparents with the same last name. Thus we could not identify who house we would go to by this identifier. As every parent can attest, kids are creative and will find work arounds. For us, our grandparents became identified by the color of their houses. My dad’s parent’s house was white and my mother’s, green. Thus emerged the identities ‘White Grandma’ and ‘Green Grandma.’
“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations.” Jeremiah 1:5 ESV
My mother told the story of being in a store in the mid-60’s with my sisters and me and one of my sisters asking rather loudly “are we going to white grandma’s first?” To which, many people quickly turned around and gave my mother a questioning and disapproving look. Sadly funny. Funny.
So, our family’s identity has always been rooted in humor. We were mistakenly identified as a ‘mixed’ family in a time when mixture was ignorantly frowned upon. The truth was our identity was in that little Appalachian Holler called Crooked Creek and Mullins Station. Forever joined by a wandering creek that brought joy, life, water and connection. Our identity emerged from two Appalachian Kentucky kids with the same last name, separated by 10 miles that might as well have been 1000 miles due to lack of transportation, communication and life-epicenters controlled by time and financial ability. Thankfully for me, my sisters, our spouses, our kids, our grandkids, God had a plan formed before time began.
“But I lavish unfailing love for a thousand generations on those who love me and obey my commands.” Deuteronomy 5:10
My prayer for you today is that you are secure in your identity. Secure in who and whose you are. God blessed me with a family of humor, brokenness, forgiveness, hope, encouragement, tenacity, commonality, deep roots and love. My prayer for you is that whatever your background, however you started, that you finish this race called ‘life’ with an identity that is in Christ Jesus that lasts for 1000 generations.
You’ve got this.