So, I had to take the family to the doctor yesterday.  Being as I am the only healthy adult, I bundled three sick kids and one sick wife into the family car and headed off into the frozen morning.  When we arrived at the doctor’s office, my wife signed the kids in while I ushered them to the waiting room.  Sitting down, I said, ‘Hello,’ to a gentleman sitting next to me, and began the wait for to see the doc.

This gentleman beside me could not have seemed more different.  I am white, he is black.  I’m in my mid-thirties, and he appeared to be around 60.  I’m there with the entire clan, and he is waiting alone.  After  sitting for a moment we began to talk. First it was just weather, then sick kids and family.  Then it got interesting.

He shared his frustration with abortion, broken homes and an increasingly selfish culture.  He exuded a desire to see traditional, American values restored into the homes in his community.  I couldn’t help but agree.  The problems he saw in his neighborhood were not really different from the ones we find.  And the cause of many of them–disintegrating families–is identical.

Then it happened, he mentioned his pastor, their church school and how they try to teach parents to be parents.  I shared some of my passions and convictions about parenting (names, that parents are THE disciplers of their children).  At this point, the nurse called my kids.  I looked at my wife, and she asked me to wait while she went back with the kids.  That’s fine with me–the rooms are tiny and I was enjoying the conversation.

For a few minutes longer my new brother and I talked, encouraged and challenged one another.  Then his teenage daughter emerged from the back, and he stood to go.  As he did, he formally introduced himself and held out his hand.  I introduced myself, and forgoing the handshake, wrapped my arms around him.

At that moment it dawned on me.  Many in our culture talk about race relations, reconciliation and such.  We have programs, quotas and entire bureaucracies dedicated to eliminating racial discrimination.  But in that doctor’s office the only lasting, true solution was clear.

“There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus,” Galatians 3:28 (ESV).