I am a white woman. A woman of fair skin and freckles and slight stature. I can’t be any color other than I am any more than I can be taller than I am. And though I wish it didn’t, racial bias exists. Not only does this impact my Asian son and Hispanic daughter, but certainly my African American foster son.

When I look at him, of course I notice his skin color. But it’s just that. A beautiful color that makes my own skin seem sickly and yellow. I see the way he looks at me, feel his tiny hands wrap around my neck, hear his giggles and screeches.

My heart doesn’t see the difference.

And yet he’s a black baby who will grow to be a black boy who will grow to be a black man. And he will be judged, by some, for the color of his skin. There’s little I can do to protect him from this, even if I could be his mom forever.

Will he grow up being marginalized, mistreated, judged unfairly, his opportunities limited? I’d like to think not. But our world is broken. Full of hurt and lack of understanding and fear. And hurt often lashes out. Fear lashes out.

If he was old enough to understand, what would I tell him? What do I tell my son and daughter? Because they know judging someone for the color of their skin or their heritage is ridiculous and unreasonable. We’ve studied the history of slavery and the Civil War. We’ve read about concentration camps. They know there is ugliness in our world.

But there’s also beauty. Beauty in the way they choose to love their foster brother knowing we will have to say goodbye. Beauty in the smile of a baby who, as yet, knows nothing of prejudice, of the way the world sees our differences. Beauty in the rainbow shades of skin within my family.

Long after we have to say goodbye to this precious foster son, I sit next to my husband one evening holding another foster baby. African American-Asian-Caucasian. I gaze at him, his head full of black hair, his beautiful skin much the same color as my son and daughter’s.

And I wonder. What if everyone in the world, for even a moment, held a newborn, a content one, who didn’t look like them? What if we could all stop, just for a moment, and look into the innocent face of a baby who wasn’t our own and marvel that God created us all in His image, no matter the color of our skin, our eyes, our hair? What if we could see ourselves opening our hearts to people who look different from us, ask questions rather than hurl accusations? What if we were somehow able to put the past aside and see each other right now, today, as people who love and live in the same great big world, people with family to take care of and family who takes care of them? What if we could choose to see the world from someone else’s perspective? Would we have more empathy? More mercy? Would we be able to concede that we are sometimes wrong? Would we feel heard, and in return, become better listeners?

Oh, I know it’s not that simple. Not simple at all. But I wish it was, wish that holding babies could heal the hurts of this world, the every baby was loved and wanted and capable of performing miracles.