About the Author

Lucretia is a wife, mom of three, and a TEDx and Q Ideas speaker (Charlotte, NC, 2017). As a former college professor, she designed the popular ‘beginners’ course and study guide, What LIES Between Us: Fostering First Steps Toward Racial Healing. She is the creator and director of the Brownicity.com...

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things we love
& you will too!
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Comments

  1. There are no words. I thank you for sharing this roller coaster ride of emotions. The verse besides Psalm 23 that leads me during times like these is I believe I shall see the good things of the Lord in the land of the living. May the God of peace and love restore all those involved. May your daughter’s hearts know the truth of the beauty of who they are in Him. And may the hearts and lips of those who spoke darkness meet the Light of the world. I love you dear sister and am sorry for this pain. And may you continue to find rest.

    • Hi Pamela.
      I sincerely appreciate your prayer for my family and the teenage boys.

      Thank you for reading my story and responding with empathy and compassion.

      Shalom
      LCB

  2. Our world is so broken. Father God, we need You! Thank You for being our Protector, our Healer, and the Lover and Restorer of our souls. Thank You for being present with each of us in our times of need and for giving us Your Word to bring us Life.
    You and all those involved are being loved in prayer today, sweet sister.

  3. Oh how your experience is so relatable & magnifies our God! He is the giver of good things before we even know to ask! I echo Becky’s “you are being loved in prayer today sweet sister”!

    • Amen Ruth!
      I had no idea what was before me. But God did, and ‘made me lie down’ and rest! God is truly great.

      Thank you for reading my story offering empathy, compassion, and prayer.

      Shalom
      LCB

  4. I’ve been sitting here, staring at the words you wrote and am horrified. I don’t know what to say other than to offer prayers. My heart is heavy. How people continue to treat each other so cruelly is beyond me.

  5. This just makes me sad and angry, that your solitude and your girls sense of peace was destroyed. We live in a broken, sinful world – nothing like this should ever happen. But God….. in his tender care loved us before we knew we needed him. Sending my love, prayers and care to you – I pray that your heart and the hearts of your daughters and their friends can be healed, strengthened and remain loving, despite this horrible experience. Your sisters-in-Christ love you. Thank you for your beautiful words we read from your heart. May you find rest in knowing God’s love for you, and your community of believers love for you❤️❤️

    • Hi Joan.
      My peace was not given to me by this world and the world can’t take it away. However, it was shaken by what happened. But our Heavenly Father new it was coming and set me up for rest so that the incident would not crush me.

      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy, compassion, and prayer.

      Shalom
      LCB

  6. Dear Sister,
    My heart both aches with pain and frustration over what your precious girls had to endure and over the fact that this bigotry still exists in our country and in this world. I am so thankful that in the world to come we will all be kind, loving and fully restored by our gracious God.
    I know pain, not the same kind but it has devastated me as well and your words of encouragement have blessed me and given me strength to last until my rest.
    Thank you,
    Deanna Noyes

    • Hi Deanna!
      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy and compassion.

      I am grateful that my story resonated with you in some way and that you were encouraged!

      Let’s rest!

      Shalom
      LCB

  7. Good morning, birds are chirping in my tree in my backyard. They are happy as can be with plenty of food and a big shady tree to call home. Not once did I think, what kind of bird is singing? I like animals and it doesn’t matter what type of bird I enjoy every morning.

    Human beings can take notes from animals sometimes. They don’t ask what type of human is going to adopt me? They just want to be loved. Animals can’t speak the way
    humans speak but they get affection. They get comfort and help. They get it when we provide them safety and nutrition.

    Can you believe it, animals can even be taught obedience. God asked us to love one another because love is of God and anyone who loves is born of God.

    We don’t have to follow in wrong patterns of bias, discrimination, fear and even pride and hate. It takes away from one’s character, especially if we have asked Jesus to be our Lord and Savior.

    Just something to think about today.

    God bless your steps and your decisions.

    Brenda

    • Hi Brenda.
      I love the simple nature of animals. We can learn a lot from them.
      I am grateful that my story resonated with you in some way and that you were encouraged!

      Thank you for reading.

      Shalom
      LCB

  8. So ashamed of what our white race has become. This I blame on the republican party for endorsing such a foolish man as Trump. Yet, as Jonathan Cahn has stated, God uses the ungodly to do his bidding. I grew up in my father’s grocery store. He loved the black people and I have worked with many black people who mean the world to me. Lord help us all.

    • The blame rests on the devil. He has been causing division since he tempted Adam and Eve in the garden to divide their relationship with God. He comes to steal, kill, and destroy. Blaming a particular political party or sinful person only creates more division. We are all sinful people living in a fallen world. There is no perfect person or political figure. Only Jesus was perfect. We need to be praying for those in authority and leadership in our government and in our world. Those of us who don’t support racism need to be showing God’s love.

  9. God is so good! I’m so sorry your daughters had this happen! Rest for renewal is so vital! I’ve forgotten how to rest & be renewed, but I know God is showing me more of it again… little by little! I came across Isaiah 41:1 “Keep silence before Me, O coastlands, And let the people renew their strength! Let them come near, then let them speak; Let us come near together for judgment.
    ” this morning with my handwritten note in the margin, “what if? Rest to renewal?” Thank you for confirming what God wants for me to see! Blessings, Carin

    • Hi Carin.
      I am so glad the message of my store resonated with you. Yes, rest. Allow restoration to have her way with you.

      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy and compassion.

      Shalom
      LCB

  10. I was so excited to read this post as I love your “voice”. But today, my heart sank when I got to the part about your daughters. I would like to say what I read surprised me but it didn’t. My son, a Korean adoptee, has been called nigger and chink too many times. And yes I am using the full word here for effect. People still use these demeaning words to hurl insults to those they view to be less than – I call that racism. And I say that racism is systemic.

    Some of the comments to Tasha’s post of yesterday reprimanded her for using the term systemic racism but here we are today reading the effects of systemic racism. God does work towards our good!

    To blame racism on one president or political party minimizes a global issue that has existed for hundreds of years. And the fact that it has existed for hundreds of years indicates it is a systemic issue.

    We can call it what we want or we can “ignore” it’s existence – but treating people/making people feel like “they are less than” due to something that is inherently a part of who they are hurts our children! It leaves scars we can’t see but that they feel in every fiber of their being. And when they have the courage to share how they feel we should not be calling them out and telling them how they feel is wrong because it makes us feel uncomfortable.

    To all Incourage writers please continue to share your experiences and give voice to these issues! Your are brave and your voices can make a difference.

    Thank you for being able to articulate what so many people feel but can’t find the words to share.

    • Hi Geralyn.
      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy, compassion, and encouragement!!

      I will pass along your encouragement to the other (in)courage writers. It takes a lot to share in a space where we know not everyone wants to hear stories from ALL the parts of our lives. But God holds us together and makes us WHOLE! We have no reason to suppress that which gives rise to freedom in our readers.

      And once I fully understood racism as systemic and structural, not just interpersonal, I began to experience healing and freedom. Today, I am an antiracism educator because of how it launched my healing and audacity to imagine and manifest a more God-centered reality.

      Shalom
      LCB

  11. This battle is not yours, it’s the Lord’s. He will give you rest. He will open doors and close doors that we cannot see. Praise God for His goodness and mercy. May you continue to rest in Him and Him alone. Thank you for your testimony.

  12. So true! I hope your family has learned the same thing from this experience. However, I also hope that you all pray for those boys. They have learned to be racists. It is not something that we are born with. I pray for your family’s safety and understanding and those boys enlightenment and peace. If we don’t learn to pray for our “enemy” the world will never change.

    • Hi Tracy.
      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy, compassion, and encouragement!!

      I prayed for the boys, and the families and communities that cultivate this type of behavior in them. I know that the fruit is an expression of the seed, soil, and growth conditions.

      While my children will learn resilience because of their behavior, I pray that the boys have the opportunity to learn love for humanity – God’s creation.

      Shalom
      LCB

  13. I loved your post about restoration. I am home today doing something similar. My heart broke at what happened to your precious daughters. There is no excuse for that type of behavior toward anyone for any reason. My heart broke again when one of your first thoughts was to set something on fire in the town. The town didn’t hurt you. Some people did. I understand wanting to hurt people who hurt your people but don’t understand wanting to hurt innocent people. I pray God will heal our hearts and our land. I pray he will give you and your daughters peace. Please know that this post is not intended as an attack in any way. I simply want to find a way to heal the hurt.

    • If you want to “heal the hurt” you can start by not saying your “heart broke” because someone expressed a moment of anger brought about by many life times of injustice. You could take a moment to realize the self control Lucretia demonstrated in not acting on her emotions. You might also try to think of a time you were so angry that you wanted to set a town on fire. And if you can’t think of such a time you should thank God for being spared that kind of injustice. We need to pay attention to the feelings behind the words – what was this intelligent, articulate, educated woman feeling at the time her children shared this experience. I would bet she was feeling a tremendous amount of pain for her children, herself and every other person who ever had racial slurs flung at them. It hurts! It destroys the self worth of a being. Don’t judge it if you haven’t lived it!

    • Hi Vanessia!
      Thank you for reading and appreciating my story.

      I was embarrassed to write/admit that I felt like setting ‘something on fire.’ But I wanted to be completely honest and hide my raw feelings. That feeling caught me off guard. I am not a violent person… I don’t even kill spiders. Last week, I apologized to the bee that stung me and died!

      In that moment, it felt as though fire would burn away my pain. As embarrassed as I was to feel that way, I now have empathy (instead of judgement) for when people turn to fire to feel some sort of relief. I don’t support it or advocate for it, I simply can empathize.

      Please pray for me and my family. I don’t want my children to think that the beach is not somewhere they belong and can feel safe.

      Thank you for your concern.
      Shalom
      LCB

  14. Lucretia, I am hurt that this happened to your daughter, my granddaughter. I will continue to pray to the Father to touch the hearts, minds, and spirits of those who seek to destroy and wreck His creation- all humans (for we all are in HIs image). I also pray for inner peace for you and your family. Much love.

    • Hi mom!
      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy and compassion. We are HIS image bearers and will continue to reflect HIS glory even as some are blind to it.

      Shalom to you.
      LCB

  15. Oh Lucretia. I am SO sorry your daughters were confronted with such vile behavior. For a while it seemed we were progressing well toward making Martin Luther King Jr’s dream a reality, that we would judge others based on their character, not on the color of their skin. But there are those who revel in dividing us, not uniting us, and impressionable young people follow their lead. With you I pray against the powers-that-be fueling the animosity.

  16. Lucretia darling, my heart sank to my ankles when I read this, and my family had the same reaction when I shared it with them. I’m just so, so sorry.

    Please know I am praying for your sweet girls’ hearts and minds, and that they would be supernaturally protected from such hatred in the future. And while I would like to hunt down that truck, I will instead pray that the hearts and minds of those boys would be softened and convicted to never, ever perpetrate such evil again. May God put them in contact with people who show them a better way–the Way.

    Finally, thank you for this message of submitting to rest when we’re called to do it. The last line of this post…wow. I won’t soon forget it.

    Love you–and love your gorgeous trio of daughters too. xo

  17. Lucretia,

    My heart literally sank when I heard what your daughters went through. I can’t imagine the terror they felt. Asking God to protect their minds, hearts & souls. May they or anyone never have to deal with that again!! Praying that God will help us erase hatred in this country & world.

    God commands us to rest & be restored. Jesus took time out from His busy schedule to rest & refresh Himself with the Father. Our bodies/souls are like fuel tanks. Every now & then we need to be refilled with His goodness in order to pour out again. Lysa Terkeurst says it best in Your Best Yes “saying yes to everyone & everything won’t make you wonder woman. It will make you a worn out woman with nothing left to give.”

    Loved this: WOW !!
    He makes us lie down so that when life knocks us down, we can get back up.

    Blessings 🙂
    .

  18. Praying for you and those who know not what they do. Our Lord and Savior, who is no color, created all of us, it always saddens me when I continue to see that we as a world full of people just can’t seem to realize that we are all the same on the inside, we have nowhere else to go, we really should learn to get along, everyone here is your neighbor and God said, love thy neighbor!
    Thy neighbor is anyone that is on this planet! Period! We all need to love. Our God,each other, and realize all the fighting is caused by satan. All wars and could be ended in a day if everyone would get on their knees and turn their eyes to heaven! Sorry you had a bad experience! Hope you can leave it at the cross! Will pray for all!

  19. Dear Lucretia,
    I am so sorry this happened to your daughters along with your friends daughters! I’m so thankful they are ok & that you had spent the morning relaxing & reflecting to be able to help those precious girls. I grew up in Los Angeles in the 60’s, being Jewish & taunted for killing Christ. My entire family felt this persecution. I know you have a different culture & experience from me but evil is still evil. One of my dearest young friends is half Black & half Mexican and she experiences the prejudices as well! I’m so thankful that God opened my eyes as a young teenager & welcomed me into His family. God has brought different people into my life & because of my past experiences I can empathise & love them. I know it’s hard but we all need to pray for those boys in the black truck that God would open their eyes to His plan of salvation. They need a Savior & a life that is filled with love & compassion not cruelty. In fact we should pray for their parents because this hatred comes from their homelife & what they see. I hope & pray your dear girls don’t have any flashbacks from this horrible experience & may turn a bad situation into one of praise to our Lord that they are safe & have loving parents to hold them, comfort them & encourage them.

    Thank you for your devotionals I love reading them! Lord bless you!

    • Barbara.
      Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy and compassion. We are HIS image bearers and will continue to reflect HIS glory even as some are blind to it. In the meantime, I pray that we have the eyes and heart of God for each other.

      Shalom
      LCB

  20. Barbara.
    Thank you for reading my story and offering empathy and compassion. We are HIS image bearers and will continue to reflect HIS glory even as some are blind to it. In the meantime, I pray that we have the eyes and heart of God for each other.

    Shalom
    LCB