Southerner

I'm a southerner. I admit it. I am not however, a stereotypical southerner. I don't say "ain't or ya'll." I don't like sweet tea, although after having lived with the Hostetters (Mrs H is from Eastern NC) I have learned to drink it and almost like it. I try to avoid having a southern drawl(is that the right word?) at all costs. I have an accent, but I don't think it's so prominent that you would immediately peg me as a southerner just by hearing me talk. I don't add extra syllables to words that have only one syllable (which southerners do quite a bit, just ask someone with a good southern accent to say my name....it will come out sounding like 'Beyethayann') People that are not from the southeast commonly think of it as a place where the people are backwards, uneducated, quite often racist rednecks. Now I was born & raised in eastern NC and I am none of those things, so I know that it's not true, but people still think that way sometimes. But I am remembering more and more lately, that I am not really from the South.....I'm just staying here while my big brother gets everything ready for me to come home. I have heard people question why God made so many different races/ethnic groups. People think it's soooo hard to get along and find something in common with people that live in a really different situation than themselves. But I LOVE the diversity God allows in this world. I love to travel and learn about new cultures and new places and hear new types of music and eat new types of food. I have learned in the last 10 years or so, but especially in the last 7 months that people are NOT that different. Even when they seem like they are. I fit in just as easily in Ghana as I do in NC. The only real difference between my friends there and my friends here is their skin color. Maybe part of the reason God allowed such diversity is to get us to realize that all the physical stuff (hair/skin color, language you speak etc) it's not really important. At the core, the soul, people are all the same. The Ghanaians love Jesus just as much as the Americans. And they need Him just as much. All the differences we have should be appreciated as a display of God's great creativity. To go to a musical term, Humans are all kind of a theme and variation. We were all created in God's Image and since Adam and Eve we've all just been variations of that original theme.

Ok so, I have something I really need to get over & let God take from me....I have HUGE issues with my dad. I need to forgive him for all the crap he's put our family through in my life-time (longer really) and I need to forgive him for being such a terrible parent. I have tried to forgive him, but it keeps coming back. The anger, the bitterness, the hurt. I honestly believe that he doesn't care about us, beyond what it will benefit him to care. He acts like he cares when he knows people are watching. The whole time I was in Ghana (7 months including Christmas) he didn't call me once, and he only emailed me a few times, most of which were forwards that were junk mail anyway. But then when I landed in NC AT MIDNIGHT, he was there....almost crying because he was so 'happy' that I was home. It makes me really really angry to know that he uses me as a way to make people think that he cares about his family and he's the one that was wronged in the whole divorce situation. My nephew rode from Rocky Mount to Macclesfield with him and apparently he basically trashed mom all the way there...to a 13 year old boy?! Why would a grown man feel the need to do that? Now he can say "oh I went & picked BA up at the airport when she got back from Ghana" which is technically true, but I bet he couldn't tell where Ghana is....or the address where I was staying, or the names of any of my friends. It just makes me mad. I still love him.....but not with the kind of love a daughter should have for her father. I just love him like I love a total stranger that needs Jesus. Is that wrong of me? I honestly don't feel like he's my father. It makes me feel a little guilty to say that, but it's true. They say blood is thicker than water, but I don't think that's true anymore. I'm almost ashamed to say that I'd sacrifice for most of my friends before I'd sacrifice for my own dad. After a while you get tired of caring so much about someone when all they ever do is hurt you. I don't know....but I have to figure out how to forgive him....it's really really hard, sometimes I don't want to forgive him. I need help with it I guess....