FamilyLife Today®

Dave Wilson: I do this. I want to know if you do this. When you're sitting in a mall or maybe in an airport or somewhere where there's a bunch of people walking by and you're just sitting there, do you ever find yourself judging people?

Ann Wilson: No, I don't think I judge.

Dave Wilson: You're just perfect, aren't you?

Ann Wilson: No, but I was saying you know what I do. Because people walk by and I create these stories of their lives.

Dave Wilson: I'm calling it judging, but I will make judgments about people that I don't know based on how they're walking, what they're wearing, and if I can hear them talking, what they're talking about. It's terrible, but I find that I judge them.

Ann Wilson: I think we as people do that. We judge one another not knowing their background or their story. Welcome to FamilyLife Today where we want to help you pursue the relationships that matter most. I'm Ann Wilson.

Dave Wilson: And I'm Dave Wilson. You can find us at familylifetoday.com. This is FamilyLife Today. Today we want to talk a little bit about how we see the image of God in everyone. Those that are similar to us, those that are different, some that we might judge without even knowing in a negative way.

How do we have the eyes of God to see people the way God sees them? They're image-bearers of our King and they should be celebrated rather than judged. We've got Chris Singleton back in the studio at FamilyLife Today. Welcome back, Chris.

Chris Singleton: Thanks, man. Glad to be back.

Dave Wilson: You're smiling over there because you wrote a book about this. It's called *Different* and it's really written for children, but I read it and it's really good. Every adult needs to read it because you can tell us what your goal and your purpose was, but I'm guessing it relates to what we were just talking about.

Chris Singleton: Absolutely. I would travel around speaking to schools, high schools, companies, and churches, but I never felt safe talking with little kids. I have such a sad story and I don't want to take away their innocence. How do I get the same message of loving people across to kids? One of the biggest things that we forget is that so many things we don't choose in our lives.

Just thinking about it, we don't choose our names most of the time; we're given our names. We don't choose where we're born or who we're born to. We even think, "Why do we like a certain type of music?" Maybe because we heard it growing up or maybe because when we finally heard it for the first time, we experienced a new music and thought, "This experience is amazing."

I just try to remind people of that, but with kids, I asked how I do that. This children's book came about. One of the things that I do with my story to honor my mom is put her in every single children's book that I write. She was an educator and she read books to me growing up. I didn't even realize how lucky I was as a kid to have my mom reading to me. So many kids don't have that, but that's when I wrote this book. My favorite page is one I'm going to read if you don't mind.

Dave Wilson: I'd love to hear it.

Ann Wilson: Do you think we should have a little background of what's happening in the story before you read this page?

Chris Singleton: This book is about a kid named Obina coming from Nigeria. Obina gets to the States and he gets to Charleston where I'm from, and he's picked on a little bit because he's different. He's wearing different clothes and he's got different hair, so kids are making fun of him. In the end, they celebrate Obina and his differences, but in this part, I put my mom in this specific scene because this is something she said to me.

Obina is sad because people are talking about him. He throws off his dashiki, his traditional clothing. Miss Sharonda handed him a tissue and her eyes were soft, the kind of eyes that seem to know exactly what you're feeling without you having to say a word. They sat in silence for a long time. Then Miss Sharonda said, "Never be ashamed of who you are, Obina. You are beautifully and wonderfully made."

That's my favorite part of the whole book. My mom used to pray for us when we were sleeping. She'd come in our room and she'd pray over us and let us know that we're beautifully and wonderfully made or fearfully and wonderfully made. I wanted to definitely put that in the story to honor my mom and her memory.

Dave Wilson: As your mom told you that as a young little boy, was it something you believed or was it something you had to walk through and struggle to believe?

Chris Singleton: It was good. I think when your parents are building you up every single day, you have a certain level of confidence. For me, I'm a dark-skinned kid, and like every kid, we get picked on because of something. People would say things about me being dark-skinned, but it went in one ear and out the other.

Why? Because my mom was telling me I'm beautifully and wonderfully made. I think it's beautiful when parents are building their kids up every single day. When a kid goes to school and they hear something, they think, "That's funny, but my mom and dad tell me I'm made in the image of God. I'm made in the image of our Lord and Savior." It's a little joke, but I'm fearfully and wonderfully made.

Ann Wilson: The whole thing just makes me cry. The fact that you put your mom in every one of your books, the foundation that she gave you to tell you every day and praying for you, reading books to you, and talking about Jesus to you. As a mom and a dad, I think often we wonder, "Do they hear us?" They're messing around and throwing things around, and you wonder if they hear you.

Your life is basically saying, "I heard my mom." Not only did I hear her, but I watched her and I want to bring honor to her. What you're saying is, as parents, that was my greatest fear. Will they understand that they were made in the image of God, that He loves them, He sees them, and He celebrates them? I love your story because it reminds us as parents that they hear us. We might have to say it a million times, but that is the foundation. You're probably saying that to your boys now.

Chris Singleton: I am. My son CJ is the kind of kid that would jump off of anything and doesn't care if he gets hurt, so I have to wind him down and pull him back. Even for him, I want to let him know because my wife is from Brazil and she speaks Portuguese at home with our kids. She wants them to learn her native language.

Dave Wilson: So you've got kids bilingual already?

Chris Singleton: Yes. At first, he wasn't saying anything. I'm speaking English and Daddy's still trying to figure that thing out. I'm still trying to figure out Portuguese; it's a tough language. I'm learning it, and my wife and grandma are speaking Portuguese, so my son wouldn't say anything. I was nervous about whether his language was okay.

Everybody was saying, "Chris, he's learning both languages. That's why he's a little bit delayed." I'm nervous that he goes to daycare and all the other kids are talking and my son's getting made fun of. That's what I'm thinking in my head because he can't say anything yet. For me to just pour into him and let him know that he's beautifully and wonderfully made—the same thing my mom told me—hopefully it stuck with him. Now he talks way too much in both languages. I'm grateful that he's able to speak, but that was always a fear that I had. Instilling it into him and letting him know whose image he's made into is very important to every child's development.

Dave Wilson: Fall is when small groups start back up.

Ann Wilson: No, fall is when football starts.

Dave Wilson: Well, small groups start back up too. If you're a group leader, you've been thinking about pulling some couples together for a marriage or family study. I hope you're thinking that. This really is the best time of year to grab material.

Ann Wilson: You can get them right now through the end of August at FamilyLife. All the workbooks for our small groups are 25% off at familylifetoday.com/shop. There's no discount code needed; you just go there. You can pick from *The Art of Marriage*, *The Art of Parenting*, or *Vertical Marriage*. They're all video studies and the workbooks are included.

Dave Wilson: It's phenomenal to watch God work in your living room and it's so easy; it's plug and play. I feel like we've done almost all of these studies. They're so good. It's hard thinking about what we can do this year. We have the answer for you and it's on sale.

Ann Wilson: We've got you covered. 25% off at familylifetoday.com/shop.

Dave Wilson: How important do you feel like it was for you when you lost your mom in a terrible way to lose your mother? You've lost your dad as well now. Was that foundation of understanding your identity—not an athlete's identity, which is often connected to what they do and they don't know who they are after or when they can't do that anymore—a foundation for you to be able to go forward?

Chris Singleton: It definitely was, but I'm such a believer in having to find it for yourself as well. Your parents can lead you to the water your whole life, but if you're not drinking it, what's going to happen? For me, my mom was always instilling these things into me. Sometimes you never know when you're going to need those things your mom and dad were talking about.

Your pastor is telling you this from four years ago and they talked about it in the sports way so it stuck with you. All of a sudden, you go through something and you think, "I remember what my pastor said four years ago." It was definitely important that they instilled it into me, but I had to have that personal relationship myself. That's when things finally started to click for me. A lot of stuff that wasn't making sense finally started to make a little bit more sense for me in my life.

Ann Wilson: I'm thinking about you traveling a lot. You're speaking to businessmen and businesswomen. You're speaking at schools: high schools, middle schools, and elementary schools. Your message is about unity. Would you say that's the core message?

Chris Singleton: That is the message: how we can live together in harmony.

Ann Wilson: Do you read your book to elementary school kids?

Chris Singleton: I do. Absolutely. It's a great response. We have fun when I go to elementary schools. I get all the kids jumping up and down and smiling. The coolest thing that I do at the end of the story is there are discussion questions. I ask them, "What makes you different? We're going to celebrate. The whole school is going to celebrate what makes you different right now."

You'll have kids come up and say, "Mr. Singleton, I've actually got six fingers." Instead of everybody laughing at this kid, we all celebrate him for being different. This other girl will say, "I've got a lazy eye; it's tough for me to see out of this one eye." Instead of laughing at her, we'll celebrate her because she's different.

Dave Wilson: Do the kids cheer?

Chris Singleton: We do. We do something called a unity clap. I call it a unity clap because we clap twice in unison. If we do it together, it's more powerful. We'll have kids saying, "My mom's from this place, my dad's from this place." Some people say, "I don't have a dad. That's what makes me different." We'll celebrate it instead of that kid feeling like they're getting beat up because they're different.

It is a fantastic time. Sometimes I have teachers saying, "You know what makes me different? I've got webbed toes." They never told anybody, but today they tell the school. It's a beautiful thing that we celebrate everybody when we do this in the schools.

Dave Wilson: I watched him do it with a bunch of elementary kids. It looked like hundreds of them. You even got on them when they didn't unity clap in unison. You said, "Let's do that again; you can do better." Help us understand. When I grow up and I'm an adult and I sit in a mall or an airport and I judge people—people I don't even know—there are times when because people are different than us, we don't understand.

We don't know their history, their culture, or their story. We judge and we build a wall rather than jumping through that wall or building a bridge. Help us understand how we celebrate somebody that is different.

Chris Singleton: This is a great example of how I teach it. For me, I always say to share your story before your stance. When you share your story before whatever it is that you stand on, people usually understand why you stand where you do. When I tell my story of losing my mom the way that I did—she was shot while she was praying, unfortunately—when I tell somebody I don't really like guns too much and I'll probably never have one myself, most people say, "I understand why Chris doesn't like them because his mom was shot and killed while she was praying."

On the flip side, if somebody tells me, "I've gone hunting my whole life. My grandmother and grandfather had a gun next to them on the bed while they slept. It was just normal for us. I've gone hunting every single year—quail hunting, pheasant hunting, deer hunting, or bear hunting." When somebody says, "Chris, I love guns," after they tell me why or their story, I can understand just as well.

Most times when we see somebody that's different, we hear their stance and we say, "I could never agree with this person." You probably could agree to disagree if you understood their story. That is how I teach how we can come together and still believe in what we believe in. You don't have to change your heart, but we have so much division because we don't know everybody's story behind their stance. When we do, that's when we can say, "I understand why they think the way they do, even though that's not what I believe."

Ann Wilson: With the Detroit Lions Bible study that I led with their wives, I made a point as we started doing it longer and longer to hear each other's stories. Then you really do understand one another. We not only hear each other's stories, but then the parts of the story where we are wounded and things have happened, we listen and we start praying. "Lord, how can I encourage this person?"

After the person has shared their story, we'll speak life into the person and say, "I'm so sorry that happened to you. I'm so sorry you've gone through this. Here are some of the things I see in your life and the way you've overcome that is miraculous." Or maybe they're still in it, but just to surround them and then at the end, we'll just lay hands on that person and pray for them. It binds us together. Our hearts are connected when you hear one another's story.

Dave Wilson: I can remember sitting in a college football locker room at Ball State in Indiana. There was a kid on our team from the inner city of Cincinnati. I loved this guy, but I thought we were so different and nothing alike. He was a Black guy; I was a white guy. He was from the inner city; I was from the suburbs.

Just all these differences. I'll never forget one day we ended up in the locker room together and most everybody had left. I'm sitting right beside him and I didn't even plan to do this, but I just said, "Hey dude, tell me about your family. Tell me your story." As he started to talk about his family, I was sitting there thinking, "Oh my goodness, we are almost twins."

In terms of his dad being an alcoholic who walked out when he was a little boy, my mom and dad got divorced, there was abuse, and there were different things in his family. He looked at me and said, "So what's your story?" I said, "It's the same story." He said, "No it didn't, dude. What are you talking about? You're from Ohio and you had this family." I said, "My dad walked out when I was seven. He was an alcoholic and there was abuse."

It just gave me a love for him and he for me because we were different, but we weren't. We've got the same story and I never would have known that if I wouldn't have taken the moment to say what you said, Chris: "Tell me your story." There's more in common here than there is different and God wanted us to build that. Is that part of the way you've learned to love somebody you don't even know?

Chris Singleton: I've recognized that going through pain and struggle is universal. The Good Book says to consider it pure joy when you face those trials, not if we face those trials. I know we're all going to face trials. Some people it happens when they're 12 like my brother, and some people it happens when they're 42. It's just different times. We're going to face them, but the way that we come together is getting each other through those times.

I loved what you mentioned about your college teammate because so often we look at somebody and say, "This person's never been through anything. They live there or they have this or have that." Struggle and pain is universal in different countries, different places, and even here in the States. I loved what you said about us speaking life into people.

The reason why I love that so much is because when my mom was killed, so many people were praying for us. Some people say, "I'm praying for you," and they may never even pray; they just say that as a nice thing to say. But I genuinely believe in the power of prayer. If people are actually praying for somebody, I think it does wonders. I believe in prayer so much. Before I even say, "I'm praying for you," I'll say the prayer's already been sent.

That's how much I care about you; the prayer's already been sent. I remember back when I lost my mom, people were sending us prayer blankets and quilts and saying, "I'm praying for you all the time." It genuinely gave me strength to know that people are in my corner praying for me. Thank you for doing that. Hopefully everybody listening is doing that as well.

Ann Wilson: When I was younger, I used to say to somebody, "I will be praying for you." As I got older, I thought that sometimes I just forget. You walk away and you forget to pray. What I've tried to do now is just pray for somebody right there on the spot. It can take not even a minute; it could take 30 seconds. I did it with an Uber driver not too long ago where she shared with me what's going on. I said, "I'm going to be praying for you. Would you mind if I just prayed for you right now?" When I was done, she's crying because there's power in that and the fact that somebody would take the time to actually pray words over you of blessing and comfort.

Dave Wilson: She is telling you the truth. Everywhere we go—it could be in an airport, an Uber driver, or our neighborhood—she prays for people right there and speaks life to total strangers. Trust me, there are times where I'm thinking, "Can we just go now? Do you really have to walk over to that person?"

It's amazing to watch the person—usually a stranger—their face lights up. You can tell maybe nobody's ever done that, or if they have, it's been years. Just that moment of looking somebody in the eye, listening long enough to know a little bit of their story, praying for them, and then blessing them with your words. It's unbelievable to watch their countenance change. They may go from the worst day of their life to one of their best. Watching my wife, she's like an angel.

Ann Wilson: I'm not, but it's just seeing people. I was in the airport a few weeks ago where there was a woman on the train going to baggage and she was noticeably upset. She was probably in her 60s and I just asked her, "Are you okay?" She started to cry and she said, "This is my first trip that I've been on without my husband. He just passed away recently. I've realized I've never paid attention in the airport because I've always followed my husband and I don't even know where I'm going." So I just prayed for her real quick. I said, "That's got to be so hard." I walked her to the car to meet her daughter. It was just if we could just see each other and notice each other when we are going through pain.

Chris Singleton: I always heard this as an athlete: praying moms and praying grandmas keep the world going round. When I hear that, I just think that's so true. I think about my mother and how much of a prayer warrior she was. Keep doing that because we need more of that going around for sure.

Dave Wilson: As a pastor and a preacher for 30 years, one of the things I tried to say often in a sermon many times a year was this thought. I got it from another preacher decades ago when I heard him talk about how we often label people with a number. Even athletes we do it; that guy's a ten, that guy's a five or six.

He said this, and I'll never forget it: "You have never looked at a person ever in your life who God doesn't say is a ten." Every person you see is a ten to God. They are image-bearers; they're made in the image of God. You've never once laid your eyes on a person that doesn't matter to God. If we remembered that, it's your core message, isn't it, Chris? How do you go from hate to love? They're loved by God, and if I'm a lover of God, I will love them whether I agree or not.

Chris Singleton: You have to. Especially as believers, in my mind, it's our duty to love people. That's what we're supposed to be doing. If not us, then who? When I hear that, I just start thinking that if this person's made in God's image and they think a little bit differently, that's totally okay. It's probably because they were raised a little bit differently or they experienced something different than I did. At the end of the day, I'm going to love them regardless. When we start thinking like that, more good will keep happening in the world.

Ann Wilson: Let me just say this to you, Chris. Well done. I look over at you and think if I had been shot and killed at a Bible study praying, if one of my sons would take on this mantle of thinking, "I've not only forgiven my mom's shooter, but now I want to spread a message of love and unity to the world," and travel around and let people know God loves them, God has made them in His image and He has a plan for them, I would be ecstatic knowing that one of my sons would have done that. Your wife must be so incredibly proud of you. You're a man of integrity. Your maturity is beyond your age at 25 years old. What you're doing is blessing so many people and you are bringing unity to our country. Thank you for all that you've done. Well done.

Chris Singleton: Thank you.

Dave Wilson: You could be an angry man and you're a blessing everywhere you go. That's a choice.

Chris Singleton: That's the mission. Thank you.

Dave Wilson: This has been a great time with Chris Singleton. I've read this book to my grandkids; it's so good. Again, his book is called *Your Life Matters*. You can get your copy by clicking the link in the show notes at familylifetoday.com.

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