Baptist News Global
Sections
  • News
  • Analysis
  • Opinion
  • Curated
  • Storytelling
    • Faith & Justice >
      • Charleston: Metanoia with Bill Stanfield
      • Charlotte: QC Family Tree with Greg and Helms Jarrell
      • Little Rock: Judge Wendell Griffen
      • North Carolina: Conetoe
    • Welcoming the Stranger >
      • Lost Boys of Sudan: St. John’s Baptist Charlotte
      • Awakening to Immigrant Justice: Myers Park Baptist Church
      • Hospitality on the corner: Gaston Christian Center
    • Signature Ministries >
      • Jake Hall: Gospel Gothic, Music and Radio
    • Singing Our Faith >
      • Hymns for a Lifetime: Ken Wilson and Knollwood Baptist Church
      • Norfolk Street Choir
    • Resilient Rural America >
      • Alabama: Perry County
      • Texas: Hidalgo County
      • Arkansas Delta
      • Southeast Kentucky
  • More
    • Contact
    • About
    • Donate
    • Planned Giving
    • Letters to the Editor
    • Advertising
    • Ministry Jobs and More
    • Transitions
    • Subscribe
    • Submissions and Permissions
Donate Subscribe
Search Search this site

God have mercy: A Latina prayer

OpinionNora Lozano  |  January 21, 2015

By Nora Lozano

As Martin Luther King Day was getting closer, I decided to approach this observance in a prayerful way. After offering general prayers for justice, peace and racial reconciliation, I asked myself: is this enough? How should I pray as a Latina? Should I be honest with myself and acknowledge that race issues touch the deepest part of my being? Should I accept that I fear judgment (perhaps my own and certainly others), as I deal with this issue?

Due to my ethnicity and the place where I live, the racial dynamics that I experience are not so much black and white, but brown and white. However, regardless of the colors, the struggle is similar. It is complex and I recognize that I do not know how to pray. In cases like this one, I like to go back to the simple prayer formula: ACTS (Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication).

Dear God:

Adoration

I worship you because you have created all of us equal. All human beings universally bear your image, regardless of gender, age, class, race or nationality. Yet, we are different, which means that you like diversity, too. I praise you because you created all of us equal and at the same time diverse.

Confession

I confess that sometimes I feel threatened by whoever is different than me. Due to this, I tend to be ethnocentric. I confess that it seems to be easier to hang around with people who look like me and talk like me.

I confess that I am a proud Latina. I recognize that this can be good as an affirmation of my heritage but that also it may lead me to arrogance and self-centeredness.

I confess that I have accepted and taken advantage of the benefits of the color of my skin, social class and education. Sometimes these particularities have separated me from the common, struggling, Latino/a folk and other minorities.

On the other hand, I confess also that many times I have stayed quiet, or that I pretended to not hear neither see when some Latinos/as have criticized me, overtly or covertly, for attending a predominantly white church or for hanging around with white/Anglo-Saxon people.

I confess, too, that I have not questioned people when I suspected that they were using me as a token.

I confess that I have not done enough on racial issues. I am clear that you have called me to be a bridge between cultures/peoples, but I admit that I get tired and confused, and then I go into a hiding mode because racism is painful and often I do not know what to do.

Thanksgiving

I am thankful for my education because through it you have allowed me to raise consciousness among different groups about diverse issues, including racism.

I am thankful for the Latinas/os as well as for the white/Anglo-Saxon people in my life. I am thankful that in both groups I have found good friends and supporters who have believed in me and encouraged me in my journey. Where would I be without them?

I am thankful for my predominantly white congregation because just by the fact that I am there, many stereotypes have been broken regarding Mexicans/Latinas/os as undocumented, uneducated and lazy. I am thankful because I have learned to love these white sisters and brothers, and they have loved me in return. And as we do this, we more closely experience what it is to live in the diversity of the body of Christ.

I am thankful for the predominantly Latino/a university where I serve. With your help and blessing, my colleagues and I are transforming the lives of many Latinos/as and other minorities as we challenge together a system that tells us that we are not college material and that we will never amount to anything good.

I am thankful for my two kids who teach me everyday how hard is to grow up as bi-cultural/ethnic persons in this country. They push me constantly to get out of my ethnocentrism and to continue building bridges.

Supplication

God, help us to realize how the sin of racism has affected each one of us as individuals.

Help me to avoid generalizations and to see each person for who they are, and for their efforts to promote justice, peace, love and equality.

Help me to take the right place at the table, not above others, neither under, but together with others in harmony as we live as the body of Christ in “a discipleship of equals” (Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza).

Help me to continue empowering my people, but also any person who may cross my path and may need my help.

Help me to continue guiding and empowering my two kids as they come to realize that they, too, can be bridges, and that they are blessed as they can take the best of both cultures, as well as reject the negatives.

Help me to live in solidarity with all people, especially the oppressed ones.

At the same time, help me to recognize that I am only me, a woman with limited time and resources, and that I need to be a good steward of the education, talents and calling that you have given me. Help me to remember that I am not Jesus, the savior, but only a collaborator in his project.

Please keep breaking me and reshaping me on this issue.

God, you know my heart and how I have struggled with issues of identity, inclusivity, loyalty and belonging, so let me close by saying: God have mercy on me/us! Maranatha! Come, Lord Jesus!

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude … from every nation, from all tribes, and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb … saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne, and to the Lamb! … Blessings and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
— Revelation 7:9, 10, and 12.


OPINION: Views expressed in Baptist News Global columns and commentaries are solely those of the authors.
Tags:columnsRaceNora Lozano
More by
Nora Lozano
  • Get BNG headlines in your inbox

  • BNG dinner will bring together Anthea Butler and Beth Allison Barr for a conversation on race and gender

    Two of the most prominent voices speaking to the American church about race and gender will appear together at the Baptist News Global dinner during the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship’s General Assembly in Dallas this June. Get your tickets now!

  • Featured

    • What’s next for recommendations and reforms in SBC sexual abuse study?

      News

    • SBC’s former law firm sharply disagrees with Sexual Abuse Task Force report

      News

    • While SBC weeps over sexual abuse allegations, the TheoBros take on Beth Allison Barr one more time

      News

    • On three-month anniversary of Russian invasion, Ukrainian Baptists and neighbors keep helping everyone they can

      News


    Curated

    • Indiana pastor admits ‘adultery’; woman says she was a teen

      Indiana pastor admits ‘adultery’; woman says she was a teen

      May 24, 2022
    • Church of Scotland Approves Same-Sex Marriage

      Church of Scotland Approves Same-Sex Marriage

      May 24, 2022
    • Banned from Communion in San Francisco, Pelosi receives Eucharist in Washington

      Banned from Communion in San Francisco, Pelosi receives Eucharist in Washington

      May 24, 2022
    • Senior Israeli lawmaker warns of “religious war” over Jerusalem moves

      Senior Israeli lawmaker warns of “religious war” over Jerusalem moves

      May 24, 2022
    Read Next:

    Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC

    NewsMark Wingfield

    More Articles

    • All
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Curated
    • Don’t overlook the depth of the disease in the SBC

      OpinionPaula Garrett

    • On three-month anniversary of Russian invasion, Ukrainian Baptists and neighbors keep helping everyone they can

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Tear down the SBC Executive Committee and replace it

      OpinionLayne Wallace

    • While SBC weeps over sexual abuse allegations, the TheoBros take on Beth Allison Barr one more time

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • It’s time to stop giving Christianity a pass on white supremacy and violence

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • Becoming UNSTOPPABLE Christians

      Paid Promoted Content

    • SBC’s former law firm sharply disagrees with Sexual Abuse Task Force report

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from ‘survivor’ to ‘whore’

      OpinionMarv Knox

    • Hearing from victims’ families changed the death penalty debate in Connecticut

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Former foster youth need to know they are not abandoned

      OpinionAlbert L. Reyes

    • What’s next for recommendations and reforms in SBC sexual abuse study?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Author considers how to mourn what’s lost when the faithful leave church

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What I learned about Polish hospitality toward Ukrainians: There but for the grace of God

      OpinionPatrick Wilson

    • As joblessness rocks South Africa, fake pastor diplomas are in demand

      NewsRay Mwareya and Nyasha Bhobo

    • Why breaking up is so hard to do for United Methodists: Connectionalism

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Stop using Jesus to disguise your predatory patriarchy

      OpinionJessica Abell and Stephany Rose Spaulding

    • Oklahoma legislators say life begins at ‘fertilization’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Sadly, I agree that a complementarian seminary shouldn’t offer women degrees in pastoral theology

      OpinionAnna Sieges

    • Baptists in Ukraine continue their humanitarian work amid devastation

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Intolerable cruelty is killing us

      OpinionKris Aaron

    • Louisville police training quoted Bible verse to say officers are God’s agents of wrath

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Another racist mass shooting and our failure to tend Jesus’ sheep

      OpinionEmily Holladay

    • Transitions for the week of 5-20-22

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • On three-month anniversary of Russian invasion, Ukrainian Baptists and neighbors keep helping everyone they can

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • While SBC weeps over sexual abuse allegations, the TheoBros take on Beth Allison Barr one more time

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • SBC’s former law firm sharply disagrees with Sexual Abuse Task Force report

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Hearing from victims’ families changed the death penalty debate in Connecticut

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • What’s next for recommendations and reforms in SBC sexual abuse study?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Guidepost report documents pattern of ignoring, denying and deflecting on sexual abuse claims in SBC

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Author considers how to mourn what’s lost when the faithful leave church

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • As joblessness rocks South Africa, fake pastor diplomas are in demand

      NewsRay Mwareya and Nyasha Bhobo

    • Why breaking up is so hard to do for United Methodists: Connectionalism

      NewsCynthia Astle

    • Oklahoma legislators say life begins at ‘fertilization’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Baptists in Ukraine continue their humanitarian work amid devastation

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Louisville police training quoted Bible verse to say officers are God’s agents of wrath

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Transitions for the week of 5-20-22

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • ‘It’s still the economy, stupid’

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Pennsylvania Baptist church licenses transgender man for ministry

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Buffalo massacre is more evidence of white Christian nationalism, sociologists say

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • Displaced by the war in Ukraine, some African students battle to continue their education in Germany

      NewsAnthony Akaeze

    • Does the Johnson Amendment have any teeth left?

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • Ministry jobs and more

      NewsBarbara Francis

    • Brian Dawkins says he’s blessed

      NewsMaina Mwaura

    • Bailey and Perrin named Vestal Scholars

      NewsBNG staff

    • Professor writes book to explain his journey from inerrantist to historicist

      NewsJeff Brumley

    • SBC presidential candidate wants ERLC leader fired for joining 75 other pro-life leaders in urging compassion for women who have abortions

      NewsMark Wingfield

    • $100 million gift to Samford is state’s largest to higher education

      NewsBNG staff

    • Don’t overlook the depth of the disease in the SBC

      OpinionPaula Garrett

    • Tear down the SBC Executive Committee and replace it

      OpinionLayne Wallace

    • It’s time to stop giving Christianity a pass on white supremacy and violence

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • SBC report shows how five words turn abuse victim from ‘survivor’ to ‘whore’

      OpinionMarv Knox

    • Former foster youth need to know they are not abandoned

      OpinionAlbert L. Reyes

    • What I learned about Polish hospitality toward Ukrainians: There but for the grace of God

      OpinionPatrick Wilson

    • Stop using Jesus to disguise your predatory patriarchy

      OpinionJessica Abell and Stephany Rose Spaulding

    • Sadly, I agree that a complementarian seminary shouldn’t offer women degrees in pastoral theology

      OpinionAnna Sieges

    • Intolerable cruelty is killing us

      OpinionKris Aaron

    • Another racist mass shooting and our failure to tend Jesus’ sheep

      OpinionEmily Holladay

    • Learning about change from Henry Ford

      OpinionBob Newell

    • Hymn stories: ‘Christ is alive! Let Christians sing’

      OpinionBeverly A. Howard

    • Gifts of hospitality in the midst of grief

      OpinionSara Robb-Scott

    • Bubba-Doo’s gets a new sign

      OpinionCharles Qualls

    • Conservative or liberal? Jesus widens our political landscape

      OpinionRussell Waldrop

    • Letter to the Editor: A response to Laura Ellis on abortion and Christian Realism

      OpinionLetters to the Editor

    • The Beloved Community and the heresy of white replacement: How ‘Beyoncé Mass’ gave me hope after the Buffalo massacre

      OpinionRobert P. Jones

    • The Holy Spirit: An advocate, comforter and encourager for times like these

      OpinionBarry Howard

    • The air of gathered worship: A 12-Sunday challenge

      OpinionPaul R. Gilliam III

    • Choose Life: Putin reminds us how bad theology can turn nuclear

      OpinionJillian Mason Shannon

    • I’m disappointed with the world but still wanting to hope

      OpinionRuss Dean

    • Racism from the perspective of a white man

      OpinionTerry Austin

    • ‘The Religion of the Lost Cause’ is back, and it may be winning

      OpinionBill Leonard, Senior Columnist

    • What is a Baptist?

      OpinionH. Stephen Shoemaker

    • Assessing the damage Twitter has done to American Christianity

      OpinionMark Wingfield

    • Indiana pastor admits ‘adultery’; woman says she was a teen

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Church of Scotland Approves Same-Sex Marriage

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBob Allen and Jeff Brumley

    • Banned from Communion in San Francisco, Pelosi receives Eucharist in Washington

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Senior Israeli lawmaker warns of “religious war” over Jerusalem moves

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Minnesota GOP apologizes for Soros puppetmaster video

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • If the media are reluctant to properly label the GOP’s racist, Christian nationalist ideologies, we’ll have trouble hanging on to democracy

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope voices hope church in China can operate in freedom

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Telehealth abortion demand is soaring. But access may come down to where you live

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • With AIPAC funding primary campaigns, young Jewish progressives move further left

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Welsh First Minister ‘regrets’ that Franklin Graham is coming to Wales

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Willow Creek announces major layoffs amid post-COVID struggle

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Ohio House passes bill requiring colleges give students 3 days of absences for religious observation

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • ‘Conversion therapy’ ban falls short in Minnesota Senate

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Don’t buy Alito’s assurances: here’s what happens next after Roe falls

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Leading Psychologist Bridges Trauma Healing and the Black Church

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • For some people, religious leaders might be most effective at communicating the importance of COVID-19 vaccination

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Former pastor in 2 states pleads guilty to child sex charges

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • A rabbi who ‘speaks to Christians’ condemned them on Twitter. It cost him his job.

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Deadly explosion damages historic church, Baptist offices in Cuba

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Faith on the ground in Buffalo: Voice Buffalo executive director Denise Walden

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • What Is Antisemitism? Evangelicals Favor Different Definitions

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Russian Religious Communities Opposed To Ukraine War Face Pressure And Censorship

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Pope’s recipe to heal his painful knee? A shot of tequila

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Why Not All Pro-Lifers are Celebrating

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    • Montana pastor J.D. Hall, Pulpit&Pen founder, charged with DUI, carrying weapon

      Curated

      Exclude from home pageBNG staff

    Conversations that Matter.

    © 2022 Baptist News Global. All rights reserved.

    Want to share a story? We hope you will! Read our republishing, terms of use and privacy policies here.

    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Instagram
    • LinkedIn
    • RSS