Shayla’s grandmother, a native of Kentucky wrote this memoir in the 1970s. Shayla shared it with our Bible Study Group, a few days ago–February 2025. It is a beautiful story of summitting your heart to the Lord. Shayla gave me permission to share it here.

MY DAUGHTER LOVES A BLACK

By Barbara G. Sweat

An icy December wind whipped my ankles while I stood by the mailbox, clutching the letter in my hand. Small bits of snow stung my face as they darted through the air, and I hurried back to the warmth of my car. I could hardly wait to read this
cherished word from my daughter, Sharon, who was a U.S. Army Sargent, stationed in Nurnberg, Germany. She was serving as a psychiatric specialist and working in the Army hospital with drug-addicted and alcoholic patients.

I always rejoiced to get a letter from her. She was busy and did not write often, but she loved people and was very dedicated in her work. She would share with me little things about her patients, and I could feel myself living her experiences through
her letters.

This was my “career” daughter; able to cope on her own, and to take the world by the tail in a downhill swing. My baby daughter, Susan, was already married and a mother. Sharon, however, had not yet met the one who could make her
love to cook and wash pans on a regular basis. “‘Mr. Right’ will come along one of these days.” I always told her, “and when it happens, you’ll know it.”

I settled back in my car to enjoy the latest news and my eyes suddenly jumped ahead. I read in another paragraph, “I want you to meet him. You’ll like him, Mom. I know you will.”

I raced back to where I had left off and began to put the
pieces together. Here was “Mr. Right” at last! He was she wrote, “The most beautiful man who had ever existed! Such a mind! Such a manner! Such physique! Such compassion with people, etc. etc. etc. And, . . . he is seriously thinking of becoming a Christian”.

Well, now!

Sharon went on to say she had been witnessing to him and he was responding to the wooing of the Holy Spirit.

What news! I was just breathing a prayer of thanksgiving when I read the end of the letter.

“Oh, by the way, Mom, he is from Panama. He’s black.”

Black?

A black man had knocked my white daughter off her feet?

I went back to read the sentence again. Yes, she really had said that he was black.

I don’t know how long I sat there oblivious to everything around me. “Lord God,” I prayed, “Why has this terrible thing happened? My Sharon – so pretty and sweet, with so much to offer and live for! Why … a black man?”

I numbly drove back home and somehow got through the afternoon. I wanted to cry but couldn’t. I felt paralyzed from head to toe. I fought for control and during the following weeks. I begged the Lord for strength and guidance more than I
ever had before in my life. I realized more fully how Jesus must have felt when He prayed, “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.”

“Lord, don’t let me make a wrong move with her,” I prayed. Goodness knows, she would still be my daughter if she married a green Martian!

Could I, though, have a normal mother-daughter relationship with her as the wife of a black man?

Many other thoughts and prayers went up to Heaven in the weeks that followed.

What about their children- – and their children’s children?

Could I love a black grandchild the same as I love my two white grandchildren?

What sort of life would they have in our society? Could they have friends, a healthy homelife? Would they be allowed
to worship in a church together?

The months rolled agonizingly by and finally brought Sharon home aglow with the radiance of a young woman truly in love.

Soon afterward, I was privileged to meet HIM – Carlos. I was introduced to a beautiful giant of a man, who stood tall
not only outwardly but also inwardly. He made his decision for Christ on his very first visit to our home. We immediately began to see the signs of his growth in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus. It was another of God’s miracles, wondrous to behold.

They have been married over a year now and are again back in Germany for another duty tour. He serves as a paramedic and this time, Sharon is a dependent, civilian wife.

Two days before they flew overseas, Carlos was
baptized into the fellowship of our own local church.
Sharon had said, “You’ll like him, Mom. I know you will.”

But it goes far deeper than that. I love him dearly as my very own son, and I know that their union was of the Lord. The scriptures tell us that “His ways are not our ways, neither His thoughts our thoughts.” I have been a witness to the truth that in Christ there is no east or west, no south or north, but that we are all one in Him.

As for my grandchildren? Well, Sharon and Carlos have none on the way as yet, but if the Lord so wills, I shall one day have a beautiful garden of colorful offspring. I shall be known as “Gramma” to all of them, though some be “vanilla”
and some “chocolate.”

I appreciate the Lord choosing me and my family to lavish one of His great lessons of love upon; and, I am thankful that we have been freed from the burden of racial prejudice which I see in the world around us. I speak for all my family when
I say that we desire the Lord use us as His instruments to bring other souls unto Him for salvation, regardless of the color of their skin!