Lucyara Usery
By Lucyara Usery
TBC Staff
Blessed to be an American? You should be. Yet, you didn’t choose where you were to be born. God’s sovereignty directs that. Citizenship will shape a lot in life but it will also reflect God’s creative nature. Does your church reflect His nature? Does your church intentionally reach out to a varied universe of citizens?
On Sept. 10, 2001, mid-morning, my husband and I arrived back in the States from a week-long trip to Brazil. We had been married a little over three years then. I was still trying to transport pieces of a hand-painted, 12-person china set Mom had prepared to give to each of her four daughters. We were down to a soup tureen and a few other odd pieces, all brought as carry-on luggage. The next day, travel as we knew it was going to change dramatically.
The TV was off and the living room floor was flooded with luggage items waiting to be put away. The phone rang and my husband told me that a plane had hit one of the Twin Towers in New York. I grew up under American-backed military dictatorship in Brazil but I knew nothing of international terrorism.
And I was not an American citizen. I was a legal, Green Card holder resident. Yet, there were some lingering, misplaced concerns that becoming an American citizen would be turning my back on my own heritage. Then, in 2006, the news of massive evacuations by the governments of the U.S. and Brazil of their own nationals from Beirut, Lebanon, prompted me to action.
In God’s perfect timing, I became an American citizen on our ninth wedding anniversary. The Lord reassured me that my oath of allegiance to a country of residence was cloaked in my oath of allegiance to the husband He’d given me for life. And even as the Ruth of old, I heard from my dear late mother-in-law, on a phone conversation that proved to be the last memorable dialogue we were to have before dementia would rob us from her sense of wit. “I am so glad that you are now one of us but, honey, I don’t care what you are because I love you anyway. And don’t worry, you will always be Brazilian,” Mama said.
Yes, by God’s sovereignty, I was made in Brazil; by His guidance, I became an American citizen; by His grace, I am what I am — a citizen of Heaven. There, I will be a representation of His pleasure in creating and preserving for Himself people from every nation. The ethnic richness of Heaven reveals the manifold beauty of the praise He deserves. As the hymn reminds us,“Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing my great Redeemer’s praise!”
Could such a choir start rehearsing throughout Tennessee? Field research and census reports show that there are over 140 people groups and sub-groups represented here.
The Tennessee Baptist Convention is reaching out to them. Will you join with us in seeking out those who will become citizens of Heaven?
