Transformative Dignity

Today is World Water Day.  Many of you may know that the issue of clean water is important to me because my son, Tariku, who we adopted from Ethiopia, drank from a dirty water source that would likely have taken his life had he not received good medical care here upon his arrival in the U.S.  His stomach was full of parasites and he had diarrhea most of his life because of his contaminated water source.  You can read more of Tariku's story here if you like.  But today you and I have the opportunity to focus our attention, efforts and resources on India.  My good friend Jody and The Adventure Project are teaming up with Water Aid to make a difference today in India.

Did you know that 1/3 of all drinking wells built in the last 20 years are broken? Instead of drilling more wells, The Adventure Project is using the charitable gifts they receive for something revolutionary – to train and employ hand pump mechanics. The mechanics earn an income, bringing themselves out of poverty, and they save lives – turning water back on for thousands of people each year.  Smart, huh?  I think so! 

I'd like for you to take a minute to meet this extraordinary woman, Ram Rati.

 
Becky Straw, co-founder of The Adventure Project shares her experience of getting to know Ram Rati...
 

I met Ram Rati in her village on a cool morning at the crack of dawn. I was instantly energized by her quick wit and smirk of brazen defiance. While other women stood demurely off to our side, faces covered and trying not to interfere, Ram Rati walked around like she was mayor, rattling off stories and beaming with pride.




This culturally conservative region in Northern India generally frowns upon women speaking in public, going outside without a veil or sending girls to school. So, to see a woman like Ram Rati, a spitfire barely five feet tall, riding her bike gallantly into their village is a shock to most people. And then she opens her toolbox and fixes their well.


Ram Rati applied to be a mechanic because she grew tired of all the broken wells in her village. Each broken well meant a farther walk, a longer line and hours spent searching for clean water. In her district, and throughout Africa, one-third of all wells drilled in the last twenty years are now broken. She decided to do something about it. She applied to become one of the first female handpump mechanics.


Strong, hardworking and not afraid to speak up, Ram Rati’s life has been full of courageous action. Forced into a child marriage at the age of eleven, she boldly escaped at thirteen, convincing her brothers to take her in. She spent the next fifteen years grinding wheat and helping raise their children.


When WaterAid showed up in her village, Ram Rati began to see hope. She was taught how to fix wells and prevent them from breaking. She learned how to ride a bike with a skirt on and her toolbox strapped to the back. She removed her veil and found her voice.


But there were some doubters. “At first I thought, how can she do?” one of the men told me. “But she got trained and learned, and now she can do it very nicely. Even a man can’t do the job as well as she does.”


Ram Rati’s friend Sheila, who is also a mechanic, added. “When I first learned to cycle people were laughing, saying, ‘Today you are learning to cycle, will you be driving a plane tomorrow?’”
“What do people say now?” I asked.


Ram Rati chuckled, “Now they say, handpump mechanic, please come. We are waiting for repairs, please come!”
……….


That afternoon I sat in the dirt alongside a group of women, watching Ram Rati and her colleagues fix another well. I was blown away by how strong they were. How they jumped in and grabbed the heaviest tools. They knew just what to do, and how to fix it. I scanned the crowd and noticed three school-age girls also watching. Mouths open, standing in awe. They were mesmerized. I recalled what Ram Rati told me earlier in the day, when she grabbed my arm and pointed at those same three girls. With conviction she said, “I want these girls to be more than us.”


On that day, in the middle of a small village, I think I observed the birth of a revolution. For the female mechanics, this is their Women’s Rights Movement.


……..


I left India convinced that creating opportunities for women to succeed can alleviate poverty and save lives. Already, Ram Rati and her team have fixed 304 wells, turning clean water back on for over 30,000 people. But it’s more than the weight of water that’s transformative. It’s the dignity.


In looking through my travel photos from India, Haiti and throughout Africa, I realize there are millions of powerful women who are unable to speak. Because they are silently standing behind veils, or are too busy walking for water.


I’ve decided that I must use my voice, to help other women find theirs.

You and I have the privilege and opportunity to act today on behalf of the people in India who are sitting in their villages with broken wells that if fixed, would be giving them clean water today.  While Ram Rati and her team have fixed 304 wells already, there are still another 4,000 in the region that need fixed. I am looking for just ten of the people who read this blog post today to go HERE and donate just $20 to this important work.  I am a part of a network of bloggers who are hoping to collectively raise $10,000 TODAY, which will be matched by Prem Rawat Foundation.  That's $20,000 in just one day.  It's audacious.  It's big.  And it's possible.  If we raise $10,000, we will help mechanics fix hundreds of wells for years to come, turning water back on for 300 people each month.  Through the generosity of Prem Rawat Foundation, that money is doubled, and well, you can do the math. More jobs created, more people served and more healthy futures for thousands of people in India.

Just $20.  Just a small sacrifice.  Just a huge difference.   Thank you, friends.

UPDATE: In just one day, $11,500 was raised for this project, for a total of $21,500 when you add in the match!!  Wow.  It's incredible to realize that our voices individually AND collectively can make a tangible difference!  Thanks to everyone who joined in!

Out From Under The Umbrella

I’ve been reading and talking about vulnerability a lot lately. It doesn’t seem at first glance that vulnerability would be related to orphan care or poverty and justice issues. But, after listening to Tom Davis’ talk at Idea Camp this month on this topic, I’m starting to understand the strong connection between vulnerability and our love and care for the marginalized.

Unfortunately, vulnerability is usually associated with weakness, fear and shame. But as Tom says, vulnerability also (and more importantly) encompasses how we feel joy, belonging and connectedness. Vulnerability to me means stepping out from under the umbrella of safety and putting myself and my heart out there, come what may. Sometimes, it hurts like crazy, but it almost always leads to joy.

If you’ve been around my blog (or my life!), you know that I have adopted my son from Ethiopia and while there, was WRECKED by a leper colony called Korah. 75,000 people living in a kind of poverty and pain I hadn’t really known existed. My friend, Melanie described her experience in Korah this week so well...

We followed Yemamu and Sisay into the dump. My first thought was that it looked like a post-apocalyptic world, like a movie set for the next big summer blockbuster. But it was real. We stepped through broken glass and plastic bags, large bones of animals, dirty diapers, bottles, cans, batteries leaking acid, rotting food. Layers and layers. Someone had dug a deep hole looking for metal to scavange and the layers of trash went as far as I could see, down down down, smoke pouring through the fissures in the strata.



And there were people. Hundreds of them. People like Busana, who received treatment at e hospital and now lives in Korah, foraging for metals in the dump that she can sell, her 1 1/2-year-old child on her back and her husband nearby searching in the dump.

As we were walking, the smoke filled our lungs, and the smell of rotting diapers, food, and animals filled my nose and lungs. I dry heaved over and over and prayed for the strength to keep walking, to keep asking questions, to keep shaking hands and hearing stories. We saw homes made of plastic tarp where 25 men squeeze in at night to sleep as the hyenas prowl outside. We saw litters of puppies, dogs with matted fur, pigs, and goats. One man was roasting a pig and it looked like he was using the smoke from the dump itself to cook it. A group of young men found a carryout container of raw chicken wings and said, “Let’s eat!” They huddled around it and everyone dug in hungrily. Yemamu showed us what people eat – coffee creamer packets discarded from Ethiopian Airlines, packets of cooking oil, leftover water in plastic bottles. He explained that many people die by drinking the wrong thing or eating something bad. The food at the dump could come from a restaurant…or it could come from the hospital and be mixed with infected blood. The water could be clean water, or it could be chemicals. They take that chance every time they eat. Their clothes come from the dump, and they could be clothes from a patient who died at the hospital, covered in blood.


Each day is a battle to stay alive, and the resilience of the human spirit is remarkable in this place. The older boys take care of the younger ones who have been orphaned. We saw women collecting plastic bags to turn in for money. Garbage trucks came in and out, pouring more and more refuse onto the smoking heap. Hundreds of people gathered around the new piles in search of food and metals. The smoke was so thick that we couldn’t see very far in front of us.

All I can say is walking through Korah (or anywhere where people is suffer) is choosing to be vulnerable. It is intentionally allowing your heart to be ripped out of your chest. Meeting the suffering face to face in all their beauty will take your breath away (as will the stench of the garbage dump they live on). Seeing a family of 12 living in 10x10 room of filth will jolt you. Watching women with leprosy whose fingers are gone trying to eek out a living by embroidering will fill your eyes with tears. Walking away from that place to go back to your comfy bed will cause you to question everything you know.

Opening my heart up to people who suffer has been for me, the ultimate form of vulnerability. It messes with me. It doesn’t allow me to ever be the same again. It is a choice that I either make or I don’t.  I either expose myself to things that hurt and in doing so, become fully alive or I put my walls up and stay safely hidden. 

I have to say, this week has been one of those weeks where I just wish I didn’t know. I wish I could go back to ignorance because it has hurt SO badly these past few days. Since I actually know some of these people and their stories, they are ever on my mind. When I open my fridge to get food, I think about the food they scavenge from the dump every day. When I grab my Advil I am reminded of their open sores, their diseases. Their faces are everywhere I look. People like my friend, Yemamu, who work tirelessly to make a difference in their lives are always on my heart.

And you know what?  That is just a GIFT.  The fact I see them at all and care about them is a gift to me from God.  I cried every day this week, real, wracking sobs over people I have only visited once.  I cried because I was frustrated and angry at God for allowing me to see them in their pain and then for sending me back to my comfortable home.  I cried because I don't know how to reconcile my life here much of the time.  Some days it feels like I will explode for wanting to be in Korah, among the people there and yet here I am on the other side of the world.  I wept over the reality these beautiful people face every day. Yet, I'm reminded that this vulnerability that threatens to tear me open some days, is the very thing that brings me the deepest joy and a sense of connectedness.  Vulnerability breeds compassion.  Putting ourselves in a place to SEE and FEEL the pain is vulnerability.  Once we SEE, we become compassionate. Compassion literally means "to suffer with".  Once we suffer with someone, we love them.  And love...well, that is what ultimately transforms us and the world. 

Jesus left heaven for the confines of earth, experiencing fully the pain and mess of this world - suffering with us.  He gave Himself up for those He loved - the ultimate vulnerability - so that we might have abundant life.  And it is as we follow His example of becoming vulnerable that we find our fullest, richest and abundant life.  My tears this week have felt painful at times, but they have ultimately helped me connect to the heart of God that pounds furiously for the hurting, the lonely, the outcast.  How beautiful and humbling. 

I'd encourage you if you have 20 minutes to watch Tom's talk on vulnerability...


IC ORPHAN - Children's HopeChest from The Idea Camp on Vimeo.

Whatever He Wants

This is my 100th blog post, which isn't anything special.  But, I was wondering about what I would write that is a good reflection of where my heart is right now (100 blog posts into this journey of learning to love the least) and then I read the post below from Katie Davis.  For those of you who don't know Katie, go here to learn about her life in Uganda with her 13 adoptive children.  I was privileged enough to meet her and her beautiful girls in Uganda in 2009.  God has used Katie's faith...her stories...her heart, to challenge my personal walk with Him.  I hope this honest, raw post speaks to you powerfully, as it did to me.  May we take these words to heart... 

“I am so old. My whole body hurts. I have suffered much,” her eyes shine with joy as she speaks, “oh, I am suffering. But whatever He wants. Whatever God wants!” And she laughs and she laughs.


We sit in our circle in the dust of a slum and we share our hearts and our prayers. Jja Ja Maria, who looks to be a hundred years old and reaches no higher than my shoulders, is the last to share.

Her life, it has been hard. She is in Jinja because she had to flee from the war in the North that tore apart her life and her family. Her son was shot last week by a soldier on the border of Uganda and Sudan and frail, little Jja Ja had made the 13 hour bus ride in the stifling heat and watched as they had lowered her last living child into the ground. The journey had taken almost a week and when she came back she found her grandchildren sick and even though her whole body ached from travel she still took them to the clinic and continued bending over her work so that she could make enough money to put food on the table. Now she is back and we are happy to embrace her and ask about her journey and ask how we can pray for her.

“What ever He wants," she chuckles.

I look at the joy that is spilling out of her wrinkled face and I repeat the words that she has spoken in my head and that doesn’t make sense. She is hurt and she is suffering and she is laughing about it and sparkling with beauty and radiating Joy.

That doesn’t make sense. Not to me. Not yet.

But she already knows what I am just learning. That even this, it is from Him. Even this, it is Holy ground. This thing that I label suffering, it is really Joy.

“Does disaster come to a city unless the Lord has planned it?” Amos 3:6

I live with these human eyes, and with these human eyes of mine I label. I label one thing as good and one thing as bad. I label moments as blessing or burden. And I forget that all this labeling, it is not my right, not my place, not mine to do. To declare what is a gift in my life and what is a curse is to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, to sit in the garden full of abundance and beauty and choose the forbidden. The knowledge of good and evil, that was never intended for me. Could I, like Jja Ja Maria just quit my labeling and say, "Whatever God wants. Whatever HE wants!"

Because God IS. “I AM.” He tells Moses and still today He IS. And if every good and perfect gift is from above, and a Good and Beautiful God can create only good and beauty then these moments that I choose to label as loss and suffering, they are really good and beautiful, perfect gifts?

“See now that I, I am He, and there is no god besides Me; it is I who put to death and I who give life. I have wounded and it is I who heal.” Deuteronomy 32:29

Suffering, pain, loss, shame – all these things I have blamed on a broken world, Satan even. But can’t a broken world and even Satan only give what God allows? Suffering, pain loss and shame are only these things because I label them as such. Because I, a sinner, choose to eat from the tree, choose to turn away from nail-scarred hands and ignore the grace and miss the gift. He is beautiful and everything He creates is beautiful and if I choose to label it suffering I am choosing to miss the beauty that is freely offered me.

On Friday I got a call from Jane’s birth mom that she had gotten her leg stuck in the chain of a bicycle. Five hours later I walked into a hospital room where she lay sedated, her heel bleeding and her tendon exposed, but untouched. The nurse saw my appalled, grief twisted face and shook her head. “God is good,” she whispered. “God's grace...She could have lost that foot.”

“God’s grace,” I thought, and I wondered what if she had? What if the tendon had been ripped clean through and she never were to walk again? What of when she was ripped from my life and left with a woman who doesn’t even care to supervise her and so she lays here hurt and bleeding and so far, far away from me?

What if God’s grace is not when He saves us, but that He saved us.

“Surely, just as I have intended, so it has happened and just as I have planned so it will stand.” Isaiah 14:24

Just as He intended. Even this, planned by God.

And if this is what He intended (and it is), then that means that every moment – the moment when my daughter’s tiny fingers were pried from around my neck, the moment in that hospital room, the moments when I hold babies and watch as they breathe their last and their mothers crumple to the floor and the moment when a dear grandmother hears that her son has been shot, and the moments when the laundry piles over my head and the children bicker and hurts from their past make them do the unspeakable and I don’t even know how to parent – every moment is His grace, a gift. Could I look and say, "whatever He wants, this is my gift for today."

God, who is Good and who is Beauty, and who saved us, even me undeserving, He can only give grace.

And I have a choice. I can let those wounded hands pull me close and I can choose to see the grace in this moment or I can again label, choosing to ignore the gift.

I see it deep in Jja Ja’s eyes, she knows. Even this suffering, He did this. He did this, not because He doesn’t know the ache – He does. He did this, a gift to me.

For the good of me. For the good of her. For the good of us, those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. For the good of all this world and the glory that is His.

And I know in that moment, I can choose to label the ripped open heel and the ripped open family or I can choose to count it as a gift, God’s grace. And the beauty is not in the circumstance or the label but the fact that in His graciousness He is here with me anyway, regardless of the circumstance or the way I choose to view it. The grace of being near to Him in trial, as long as I can chose to see it, is certainly the greatest grace of all.

This is what Jja Ja knows and this is what I am learning. God’s grace is not blessing, earthly reassure, our security or even the security of our children. God’s grace is not that all is “well” and right in my eyes. God’s grace is not when He saves us but that He saved us.

Here I am face to face with Jesus in the dirt and all I have to do is choose to see, accept the grace offered freely. His compassion and His mercy, this Grace, it never fails. Each moment each breath, is a gift simply and only because I get to spend it with Him.

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. Lamentations 3:22-23

Whatever He wants. And I am thankful.

May He...



Waiting Room at an AIDS clinic I visited in Uganda

 May God bless us with discomfort at easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships - so that we may live deep within our hearts. May God bless us with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people - so that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace. May God bless us with tears to shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war - so that we may reach out our hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy. And may God bless us with enough foolishness to believe that we can make a difference in the world - so that we can do what others claim cannot be done, to bring justice and kindness to all our children and the poor.  Amen.
(Franciscan Benediction)

Awakening

"Who would ever know the greater graces of comfort and perseverance, mercy and forgiveness, patience and courage, if no shadows fell over a life?" - Ann Voskamp

I'm reading a book right now called "One Thousand Gifts" by Ann Voskamp.  Ultimately, it's about how thanksgiving can transform a life.  She talks about how awakening to joy and thanksgiving means awakening to pain.  I know...can we just awaken to joy and fullness of life and skip the pain part, please??

But, aren't we only truly able to enter into a place of deep, authentic gratefulness and joy when we have tasted of pain?  Isn't it our experiences in dark places that compel us to throw open wide our arms and lift our face to the sky and soak up the light?  Isn't it our journeying through the deserts of life that cause us to fall by the pool of water and lap it up, drinking deeply?  If my life was always smooth and easy, would I truly have the ability to appreciate it?

I am so quick to give thanks when life is good, when I am comfortable, when I FEEL blessed.  But what of those times when I am feeling my way in the darkness with no light seemingly in sight?  What then?  Am I just as quick to utter thankfulness in the midst of that circumstance?  No, I'm not.  In fact, during times of struggle words of thanks are hard pressed to make their way through my pursed lips. 

Has God changed?  Do my difficulties and struggles mean that God has changed?  Is He not ALWAYS good?  Do I not ALWAYS have a reason to give thanks? Not just to utter the words aloud, but to have the attitude of my heart be joy and thanksgiving?  Doesn't scripture say that "in EVERYTHING I am to give thanks"?

Ann writes...

"Lord, that I day after day after day greedily take what looks like it's good from Your hand - a child gloating over sweet candy..."  I've been a thief, trying to hoard away all the good. "...but that I'd thrash wild to escape when what You give from Your hand feels bad - like gravel in the mouth.  Oh Father, forgive...Should I accept good from you, and not trouble?" 

I am the greedy too.  I am the eager one that reaches out to take all the good I can get when it appears.  But what of the dark?  Rarely am I ever thankful FOR the dark.  But, can I not reach out in that darkness and be thankful in the midst of it?

She continues...

"I awaken to the strange truth that all new life comes out of the dark places, and hasn't it always been?  Out of darkness, God spoke forth the teeming life.  All new life labors out of the very bowels of darkness.  That fullest life itself dawns from nothing but Calvary darkness and tomb - cave black into the radiance of Easter morning.  Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life...and emptiness itself can birth the fullness of grace because in the emptiness we have the opportunity to turn to God, the only begetter of grace, and there find all the fullness of joy.  Darkness transfigures into light, bad transfigures into good, grief transfigures into grace, empty transfigures into full.  God wastes nothing."

He wastes nothing.  And so even in the midst of pain and suffering I can give thanks and find joy because that pain and suffering will not be wasted. 

I think back to Africa.  To the mother walking barefoot on the hot ground, sweating baby strapped to her back, heavy bundle of provisions on her head, alone because death had come knocking at her doorstep for her husband.  And she smiles so big, all her beautiful white teeth showing, her eyes glowing.  And it must be that her suffering and her pain are the very things that make her grateful for the bundle of love radiating heat on her back, for the weight of the food on her head and for the hot ground beneath her feet.

Oh Jesus.  May the dark places on my journey not keep me from thankfulness.  May I open up my hand for whatever You have for me to receive - WHATEVER.  May my response to You at all times be heartfelt praise.      

The Faces of Love

Love.  What a small, powerful word.  It has the potential to change the world.  To change us.  Most of us seem to excel at self love, but selfless love...that's harder to come by.  And it's that selfless love poured out that makes even the harshest cynic stop and take notice.  I find it noteworthy that the poor and those who suffer know quite a bit about selfless love, because it's what brings meaning and fullness to their lives.  Emptying their lives on behalf of those around them ultimately fulfills them. 

I want to share with you some of the faces of love I have seen up close and personally over the past year or so.  As I took in each one of these faces I was filled with awe and respect, and honestly, a bit of shame as I held my own "selfless love" up to the light.  Yes, my circumstances are different simply because of my geographic location, but at the end of the day aren't we all the same?  We have the same longings and desires.  We have the same blood coursing through our veins.  We all have opportunities to choose selflessness...to learn to live completely in the beauty that is self-sacrifice. 

These beautiful women, most of them lepers, spend all day making cotton into cloth, doing intricate embroidery, dyeing fabric...all so they can afford the tiniest bit of food for their large families.

And they do it here...in these hot, stifling metal boxes in the middle of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 

They do it for LOVE.

Meet my dear friend, Yemamu and his mother.  She works all day embroidering fabric in one of the steamy boxes above, while her husband who is plagued by leprosy, begs in the city.  Yemamu works to support his family as best he can.  His heart is consumed by helping those in Korah, the leper colony he grew up in.

Yemamu introduced us to this woman who hasn't been outside of her home in at least 15 years.  Her hands and feet have been destroyed by leprosy and she lives at the mercy of others who are struggling to survive as well.  But Yemamu visits her and tries to help her as best he can.  He offers her what he can. 

Sometimes it's simply prayers.  He does it because he is compelled by LOVE.

Meet one of the teachers at Kechene School in Ethiopia.  I wish you could have been there to see his energy, his enthusiasm, his eyes sparkle as he talked and sang with the children.  He wrapped his arms around them, he laughed with them, he invested his life in those precious, smiling faces.  Love echoed loud off those walls. 

 These may be some of the most passionate, creative men I've ever met.  They all live in Korah, the leper colony, which is also home to 75,000 of the poorest people in Addis, the capital city of Ethiopia.  Having grown up in Korah, they know how difficult it is for young men to find something good to occupy their time with.  So, they constructed this building and turned it into a gym where young men can come and work out.  The unbelievable thing about this room is that everything you see in here they collected from the garbage dump that Korah sits on.  They even melted down car batteries to turn them into dumbbells! 

They have had their equipment stolen out of the room, yet they keep going back to the dump for more.  

All because they LOVE. 

This is one of the sweetest women I know.  Because of desperate circumstances, her daughter sold her own child (this woman's grandson) to a woman on the street who was looking to earn more money begging in the city.  A woman who begs with a baby on her back is likely to receive more money than a woman who begs alone.  As soon as this grandmother found out about what happened, she went searching for her grandson.  She found him.

She has raised him in the face of tremendous difficulty and illness.  Look at that smile on his face.  It's there because love came for him.  Love sought him out.  Love sacrificed for him. Love knows he is worth it.

Sacrificial love is self-sacrifice with the pure motivation to alleviate the suffering of others. This supreme love is suffering love, love that requires involvement in the knotty problems of the world, love that bears with the failings and weaknesses of others, love that is committed to helping others regardless of the cost.



The Rest Is Noise

It has been one of those weeks.  We've had a stomach virus at our house this week.  It's always made worse when mom has it. :)  My patience is thin and my capacity is lessened.  My poor kids.  I had my two youngest home from school with me today after a night of all of us being sick.  They were hungry and the thought of having to make them food literally sickened me.  But, they had to eat so I pulled a can of chicken noodle soup out of my fully stocked cabinet.  I opened it, dumped it in the pot and turned the sink on to fill up the can with water.  I stirred it and set it on the stove.  In a few minutes it was done and I pulled a few other things out of the fridge, filled some glasses up with water and lunch was served.

I grabbed some medicine out of the cabinet, popped a few pills and went and laid on the couch while my kids ate.  A while later I picked up my laptop to do some work so I wouldn't get too far behind.  All the while, I was inwardly (okay, and outwardly too!) complaining.

But then I started thinking about some of my neighbors in other parts of the world.  I started thinking about what their day would look like if they were sick and their kids were home from school hungry.  I walked myself through each step I had taken at lunch time today and pictured what it would be like for them...

My neighbor in Africa would wake up sick and weak, with lessened capacity just like me.  But likely she would wake up that way every day due to lack of nutrition.  Her children wouldn't be home from school for a day because they had a 24 hour virus.  Her kids would be home from school because she couldn't afford to send them  or because they were seriously ill and too sick to go.  When her kids told her they were hungry, she couldn't just wander over to a fully stocked cabinet and get them food.  She'd have to look in their eyes and say "We don't have any.  Let's go try to find some".  If she happened to find some food to cook, she'd have to walk a long distance (perhaps miles) to fill up a container of dirty water to boil to cook.  She'd have to collect wood for a fire.  She'd take her children with her while she searched for what she needed, likely carrying the little ones on her back the whole way.  What took me five minutes to do would very well take her half a day at the very least.  And if she was lucky enough to feed her children, they would be hungry again soon after. 

While I take my medicine for my poor little tummy ache, she lives with her pain.  I open my laptop from the comfort of my couch and do work that provides me with more income in a month than she'll ever see in her lifetime.  She doesn't know where her next penny or meal is coming from. And yet...I complain.  God must want to sigh and hang his head at me sometimes. 

I am SO stinking comfortable in my life.  Even after three years of God prying my eyes open to finally see the poor and vulnerable...I still find myself so wrapped up in ME.  Yuck.

I look around at all the things that I have and all the ways that I protect myself from even the slightest discomfort and I'm sick all over again.  I was listening to Tom Davis speak this weekend at a justice conference and he was talking about how we RUN from vulnerability.  We view vulnerability as weakness.  We numb ourselves from grief and pain.  We make it so that everything in our lives is protected and stable.
We have life insurance, home insurance, car insurance, our kids wear helmets every time they get on anything that moves...it's Protect, Protect, Protect.  Shield ourselves from anything and everything that might cause us pain.

And yet, God doesn't ask us to protect ourselves.  In fact, He says the opposite.  He says to get vulnerable.  He says to give up everything we have to follow Him - including our safety and comfort.  He says we may not have a place to lay our heads at night if we follow Him.  He says we might be asked to sell all our possessions and give them to the poor.  He actually PROMISES us that in this life we WILL have trouble - it's not if, but when!

And yet, I go about my days far from dependent on God.  When we have SO much stuff in our lives, our need for God can tend to slide away.  I heard someone say this week that we don't pray for our daily bread because we have cabinets full of it.  We know where our next meals are coming from.  There's no need to ask for it.  Wow.  Isn't it God who gives us the ability to work so we can earn a living and put bread on our table?  At the end of the day, isn't everything we have a gift from God?  When will I start living fully in the realization that God will always, always give me what I need and that I can let go?  I can hold the blessings in my life loosely and recognize that there may come a day when some of them will be gone.  And it will be okay.  Because at the end of the day, God is always good.  And He has only asked two things of me - to love HIM with everything I've got and to love people like I love myself.  The rest is noise.

Smelling Salts

Well, I'm totally stealing this from my awesome friend Jody's blog. 

“Jesus hates suffering, injustice, evil, and death so much, he came and experienced it to defeat it and, someday, to wipe the world clean of it. Knowing all this, Christians cannot be passive about hunger, sickness, and injustice. Karl Marx and others have charged that religion is ‘the opiate of the masses.’ That is, it is a sedative that makes people passive toward injustice, because there will be ‘pie in the sky bye and bye.’ That may be true of some religions that teach people that this material world is unimportant or illusory. Christianity, however, teaches that God hates the suffering and oppression of this material world so much, he was willing to get involved in it and to fight against it. Properly understood, Christianity is by no means the opiate of the people. It’s more like the smelling salts.”
- Timothy Keller

Resting, Dwelling & Feasting

REST.  Why does just typing that word make me anxious??!! Ha! Well, I couldn't possibly rest. I have a company to run, three kids to care for, a marriage to nurture, groceries to purchase, laundry to do, a house to clean, a body to get in shape, African orphans to advocate for, a church to be involved in, friends to see, bills to pay...I could go on for hours. The New Year is often a time of resolutions...most of mine have never been kept because of the reasons mentioned above. :)  So, as I've been thinking and praying about what this year might look like, I think it might look like REST.  How's that for an ambitious goal? Sadly, it IS!!!  

We have been through so much change as a family over the past year. It has been non-stop transition. We have had some of our highest highs and lowest lows this past year.  Through it all, we have felt God close, but man, we're emotionally and physically tired!!  We are also very excited about what 2011 might look like for us and the things God has in store.  But I keep coming back to this idea of rest.  What does that even look like and how do I do it??

Psalm 91:1 says "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty."  I find it interesting that the privilege of resting in God's shadow comes as we DWELL in His shelter. 

The dictionary defines the word "dwell" as the following:

1. to live or stay as a permanent resident; reside.

2. to live or continue in a given condition or state: to dwell in happiness.

3. to linger over, emphasize, or ponder in thought, speech, or writing

So when I say that I want to rest this year, what I'm really saying is I want to DWELL.  I want to RESIDE in the shelter of the Almighty.  I want to STAY there.  I want to LINGER in His presence and PONDER who He is.  Dwelling with and in Him naturally leads to me resting in His shadow.  

I love the imagery of resting in God's shadow.  It's as if it's an unbearably hot and humid day and just when I start to feel faint He's there hovering over me...this amazing, strong, refreshing, reassuring presence.  I can let down.  I can breathe. I can REST.  I can be re-energized and at peace.


This rest...it's available at every moment of every day if I seek it.  I don't need a New Year's resolution to rest.  I can find it this very second.  But this year, I want the act of dwelling to become more natural and instinctive.  I want to be where God is, to experience His presence more fully so that I can share it with the people around me.  I love the idea of lingering in His shadow...just like the evening light lingers as the sun sets.  


Our culture doesn't rest and it doesn't linger over much worthwhile anymore...so that will be my struggle.  But I trust that as I seek Him out more diligently and learn what it means to truly dwell in the shadow of the Most High, that the beauty I find there will be no match for the things that compete for my time and my thoughts. 

The second thing I long for this year is to FEAST.  I know how to pick em, huh? Resting and Feasting.  Sounds rough! :)   When I think of what it means to feast I think of coming to a huge banquet table that is overflowing with the finest variety of foods.  And I want to come to God's table to feast.  When I looked up the definition of "feast" (yeah, I was on a dictionary kick today) it said this: "to dwell with gratification or delight, as on a picture or view".  There's that word again.  DWELL. How cool is that? 


God's invitation to us all is to come and feast with Him.

"Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to Me; hear Me, that your soul may live." - Isaiah 55:1-3


I want to sink my teeth into the things that will feed my soul.  I want the days of spending money and time on things that don't satisfy to be over.  I want to go deep.  That's my craving for this year - to dwell with and be delighted by the lover of my soul as never before.  Not a bad way to start a New Year. :)

   

A year ago today...

One year ago today my life changed forever. My heart raced. My breath got caught in my throat. My eyes filled with tears. Time finally quit crawling by and actually froze. And I knew that I knew that I knew. Child #909-33 was mine.

We had been on the waiting list for one year. Waiting for a little baby boy from Ethiopia. But then God stepped in and changed our hearts. He shattered them with the eyes of older kids we had looked into in Uganda. He pounded on our heart’s door with their precious hands slipping into ours and squeezing so hard. He broke them as we watched them carry their brothers and sisters on their backs all day long. And so we gave in. We threw up our hands and gave God all the fear we had about adopting an older child and extended our requested age from an infant to a five year old. It was up to Him. The paperwork to change the age range went through on December 7, 2009. We were told that maybe by March we would get a referral.

Then came December 10th. Just three days after the age change was processed we got THE call. The call that every adoptive family on the planet agonizes over and waits for. It came.

I remember hearing Tariku’s heart breaking story. I remember scouring the information in the referral document. We got three attachments in the email…the first one was all the information about him, but I just wanted to see a picture him. I clicked on the second attachment and all that was there were pictures of the burns on his hand. I didn’t need to see the burn pictures – they didn’t matter in that moment. I just wanted to see his face!! Then finally I opened the last attachment. It seemed to take an eternity to load. My body was shaking. I just wanted to see his face. I just wanted to know the moment I saw him that he belonged in our family. I was so nervous…what if I didn’t feel a connection? Can you even feel a connection through a picture?? Then his face filled the screen.  His tentative, sweet, precious little face.

I remember drinking him in instantly. I can still feel my heart exploding. I can remember my sobs as I smiled like someone who’s crazy in love. I knew in a matter of two seconds. It was meant to be. God had moved heaven and earth for this moment. It was no mistake. Tariku was ours.

This little boy who was alone now had a family.  My heart soared.  That empty space inside of me that was missing my little boy somewhere on the other side of the world was instantly full.  God had fulfilled his promise to both of us.

And now, this beautiful little boy is thriving and growing and happy. 

There's nothing like the moments I spend tucking him in bed at night.  He tells me about Ethiopia. About his history.  All while his sweet little hand rests gently on my face.  He goes on and on about what he remembers...what he felt.  The good and the bad.  The pain and the happiness.  Often, I can't help but let the tears roll down my face as I realize all my little one has been through.  Other times, I just lay there in wonder and smile until it hurts.  The little one I dreamed of for so long lays beside me.  Safe and happy and loved.

I can't imagine my life without him.  I am just so thankful.  I am so in awe of what adoption has meant to our family and how it has transformed our lives and the way we want to spend them. I can't help but think...what if we never pursued adoption?  What if the obstacles scared us off?  What if the fact that we only had $1,000 of the $20,000 needed had kept us from starting the process?  What if???

We wouldn't have gotten to see God provide every penny of what we needed.  We would still be stuck in our safe little lives, numb to the 147 million orphans in the world.  We never would have gone to Uganda and seen first hand how orphans like our son struggle to live day in and day out.  We never would have felt moved to spend our lives on behalf of vulerable children.  We never would have moved across the country and accepted a job with Children's HopeChest advocating for orphans.  We never would have had the life altering encounter with God that we have had.  And we never would have experienced the joy of having Tariku as our son. 

Fear stinks.  Plain and simple.  It robs us of the depth of life we are meant to have.  It steals our joy.  The reality of living in safety, risking nothing actually ends up suffocating us.  Adoption is scary.  Lots of things in life are scary.  But none are scarier than missing out on what CAN be if we would just take even one little step or one big, bold, blind leap of faith. 

Pick It Up

"There are moments in life where you walk up to something and you can’t believe your eyes.

Like there is NO way that this dream is sitting right in front of you.

No way.

You look around.

You look for a hidden camera.

Nothing. Nada.

It’s true.

It is really there.

You start convincing yourself that this dream is maybe not for you.

Maybe somebody left it there.

So you wait. Sit. Stare. Dream. What if? What if?

You don’t dare touch it.

Almost as if you believe that if you touch it, it will go away.

Then you see someone walking towards you.

He gets to the dream, looks around, and in 2 seconds picks it up.

Done deal. He gets to live your dream. And your fear of God not wanting His all for you has paralyzed you to pick up what He created for you.

That gift of a dream.

So today…When you walk past that dream…

Don’t leave it sitting there.

PICK IT UP.

It’s yours." - Carolos Whittaker

Photo courtesy of the incredibly talented Esther Havens

I am SO proud of my friend, Jody Landers for not walking past her dream, but for picking it up, as scary as it was at times.  The Adventure Project was birthed out of her dream and here it is...the launch date for the reality of the crazy thing God placed in her heart some time ago.  And it ROCKS.  As in lots of little rocks...lumps of coal actually.  She went to Haiti last month and found the value of a few lumps of coal.  The power that they have to change people's lives...to help restore dignity...to create jobs.  And so, it is with lots of excitement that I present to you the opportunity to give a beautifully packaged lump of coal for Christmas and provide a family in Haiti with an efficient coal stove.

CLICK HERE to join the adventure.  For $20 each, how can you afford NOT to???

Going Limp

I had just written yesterday about pain and then stumbled upon the blogpost below from this woman that I just had to share.  Beautiful and true.  Enjoy.

Two years ago I read C.S. Lewis’, The Problem of Pain, and thought I was an expert on the subject.


Unfortunately, and as much as I hate to admit it, life cannot be experienced through books. There’s no getting around it. I can read all I want about why there is pain, what to do with it, how to handle other people’s pain, the life of Job, etc., and not come an inch closer to truly knowing how to function when pain comes ripping into my soul like Dorothy’s worst nightmare. Disrupting my well-ordered, well-read thoughts with emotion that cannot be logically explained.

I have been married for almost a year. It has been a painful year. About two months into marriage, when I was happily cruising on a (what felt like would be) permanent high of a new marriage, new job, new everything I could have ever wanted, God very gently reopened a wound that covered up with many, many years of cynicism and pride.

Of course I never would have dreamed of saying that then. All I knew was that I would go to bed at night feeling like someone had ripped a hole in my heart and walked away without any explanation.

With this inexplicable came fear, depression, and hopelessness. Everyone throws around that phrase, “misery loves company,” but no one ever tells you what company misery brings with it. Those were some of the darkest months of my life.

I guess what caused it to “feel” so intense was in contrast to what I had expected. I was barely into a new marriage and getting ready to finally go on staff with the ministry that I had volunteered for all throughout college. This was supposed to be the happiest time of my life.

Then God stepped in. He led my husband to ask me some hard questions. Grace-filled and always with gentleness, but hard.

God pulled back those layers of pride & cynicism and looked at that wound and said, “There, right there. You needed me and thought I had not come. You felt alone, unloved, abandoned. You were mocked by those you held closest to you, and you felt like I didn’t do anything to stop it. So you protected yourself, Christina. You have built up your walls so high and thick that you’ve forgotten you need Me. You would rather be given the glory and approval of man than of Me.”

I called one of my friends who has been a counselor to me for the past few years. I sobbed (maybe coherently) into the phone about what was happening. She prayed for me before saying anything. Then, very quietly, she said something that rocked my entitled self right over on my backside.

“Christina, I keep hearing the phrase, ‘Go Limp.’“

“…. what? Go what?”

“Yes, I feel like you’re supposed to stop fighting this and go limp.”

We talked for a little longer and then I hung up the phone. I rolled over onto my stomach and had it out with God. Where have YOU gone? What are YOU doing? Go limp! What do you mean?! I have given you everything Jesus and YOU leave me like this? Hung out to dry? Go limp?!?!”

A lot of people quote that verse in Psalms, “Wait on the Lord. Be strong and take heart, and wait on the Lord.”  What if the Lord asks you to wait in pain?

If you read that and thought, “Well waiting in pain isn’t that hard,” then forgive me for being blunt, but you do not know the pain of which I speak.

There is a pain that doesn’t allow you to run away from it. What if the Lord asks you to sit in that pain? That doesn’t go away with medication, or facebook, or movies, or alcohol, or sex, or work, or a new pair of shoes, or a new hobby, or a new home project, or a new baby, or a new relationship, or, or, or…..

Waiting around the corners of your thoughts, it crashes around you. It suffocates reason. The only person who opened themselves up to that kind of pain was Jesus, and He wasn’t too excited about it.

We humans have become experts at avoiding pain, and I wonder if we’re numbing ourselves to death because of it.

Some of you know exactly the pain I am talking about. If you walked through a season of this pain in the past than you are overwhelmed with the mercy and grace of Yaweh.

We walk with limps, you and I, but we know Who holds us up, now, rather than what.

If you are walking through it now your soul may scoot as far as it can into the corner of your being and cover its face like a frightened child. There is hope, beloved. Oh, is there hope. You will be able to experience a side of your Father that only those wounded beyond coping can.

I heard a speaker give her reason for why she chooses to follow Jesus, and I thought it was beautiful:

“It’s pretty simple, my God has scars.”

There is hope in the middle of suffering. Even when the Son of God breathed His last on the cross, the curtain in the temple split in two, and the Holy and Eternal came colliding into this world to wrestle the broken, beaten, and forgotten from the hands of the enemy.

At the darkest hour hope came rushing into this world violently, and while Easter morning sings of salvation, it also brings a deep, unmoving, Strong Tower of joy to those who are in pain.

I feel like I could write for hours about the gritty in between spots, but much like how we process pain it would be a whirlwind of anger, depression, frustration, hurt, and exhaustion. Rather I’d like to give you snapshots of redemption over the past several months.

My husband laying beside me and holding my face in his hands, telling me that I need not bring anything to our marriage but myself, even if myself is unhappy.

Sitting in a chapel in Colorado during a worship service and weeping for thirty minutes, because God gave me the vision of Him running toward me in desperation, arms wide open.

Reading the scene between Edmund and Aslan in, “The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” on the front porch of the admin building at the YMCA of the Rockies and realizing what grace really is.

Mourning losses I haven’t allowed myself to. I cried about things that happened ten years ago.

Being able to forgive someone who I’ve been bitter toward for quite some time, and then being able to forgive a church that I’ve been bitter toward for quite some time.

Reading the Gospels and hearing the tone of Jesus’ voice, hearing the desparation that has no trace of the pathetic, but rather stems from a holy love.

There’s much more, but to wrap it up I wanted to include an excerpt from “The Gospel According to Job,” by Mike Mason:.

…. they are something we have come to expect in the speeches of Job: a shockingly earthy account of a knock-down-draw-’em-out struggle against the raw power of an incomprehensible Spirit Being. Time and again Job resorts to images of war, savage aggression, and brute hand-to-hand combat in an effort to describe his relationship with God. Why? Because in his present condition this is what faith fells like for him. this is what it is like to believe in God when absolutely everything is going wrong …

Those who utterly despair of trying to do anything good for God, yet who blindly insist that God be good to them – these are the faithful ones. These are the ones who have the grit to hold on to God through the grimmest and dirtiest of scuffles. Nothing short of that kind of faith could have carried Jesus through the ordeal of the cross, “The old rugged cross,” a famous hymn calls it, and so it was. The cross was a rough, dirty, violent affair, and it was all God’s idea. Why do we picture the Lord as being less rugged than we are? Just because He is holy, does that make Him milk-mannered, skittish, oversensitive, and effete? Too delicate to handle the gross crudities of real life? if we shrink from the idea of wrestling with God, is it because we are afraid of losing? But Jacob did not lose! Perhaps the real probelm is our fear of offending God’s refined sensibilities. Are we so afraid of seeing our nice clean God get dirt under His nails, or blood on His lily-white hands?

There is no life without fight. There is no reality without blood, toil, tears, and sweat. If you are a Christian who does not wrestle, then you may be sure of one thing: someone else is doing the wrestling for you.

Pain Is The Underbelly of Love

"Pain will come because pain is the underbelly of love, but Love is the greatest because nothing, not even pain, can can ever steal Love’s joy.” -Ann Voskamp


Isn't much of life just messy?  Relationships, Work, Emotions, Circumstances...all of them can just get so messy.  I love my friend Jen's blog.  She calls it a "beautiful mess" and isn't that just what we are all??  One big, beautiful, hot mess. :)

To be honest, I've felt a bit of a mess lately.  Scratch that.  A LOT of a mess lately.  These past two years have been so FULL.  Full of spiritual transformation, full of brokenness, full of change.  Change is painful.  Realizing my faith was incomplete was painful.  Allowing God to break down all the walls I'd built up around my life was painful.  But God does a funny thing with our pain.  He uses it.  He loves us through it. He shapes us through it and makes us FULL and more complete.  Stronger.  Deeper.  More courageous and more hopeful.  A better reflection of Himself.  

I'm in one of those seasons right now.  God is stripping me of everything I rely on, everything I know and am comfortable with and leaving me with just Him. JUST HIM??  Hmmm...isn't that the place I should be every day of my life?  Reliant upon Him and Him only?  Isn't "just Him" all that I need?  Isn't it funny when life doesn't go as we expect that we can immediately take on a "But, God...I deserve better than this!  I gave up so much to follow you!" kind of attitude?  Wow.  How childish.  How ridiculous.  Don't I recognize that HE is the one that gave up everything for ME???  Don't I know that just because things are bumpy and more difficult than I like that He is still the God who loves me and has my best interest at heart?  Don't I know that God is more concerned with growing my character and my love for Him than my comfort and satisfaction? 

I know it in my head, but sometimes it takes a while to sink deep into my heart.  I have so many questions right now, so much I don't understand. But then I'm reminded of 1 Peter 4:12 that says "Friends, when life gets really difficult, don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job. Instead, be glad that you are in the very thick of what Christ experienced. This is a spiritual refining process, with glory just around the corner". 


And here's the bottom line for me today.  My life is about bringing glory to God.  That's what I long for, that's what God longs for.  And so if God is glorified in the midst of my difficulty then it is worth it.  Always.  There's a line to a song that says "Bring me anything that brings You glory".  Anything.  Yikes!!  But that's what I long for today - a heart that says "God, I will choose to follow you and trust you when I don't understand.  I will choose JOY in the midst of my pain and difficulty because YOU are worth it.  Because You deserve all the glory". 

And He is SO worth it.  God's faithfulness and love is the same yesterday, today and forever.  My circumstances may change but He does not.  And so I have HOPE and I beg for Him to enter into my mess and give me the ability to see Him for who He is and for what He is doing in the middle of it all.  Because He is doing something.  He is loving me in the midst of the messiness.  He is whispering His joy to my heart.  He is refining me.  He is working to make me more like Him.  And that's all I ever want to be.  More like my Savior. 

Psalm 145:13-19

The LORD is trustworthy in ALL he promises and faithful in all he does. 

The LORD upholds all who fall and lifts up all who are bowed down.

The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food at the proper time.


You open your hand  and satisfy the desires of every living thing.


The LORD is righteous in all his ways and faithful in all he does.

The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.  

He fulfills the desires of those who fear him; he hears their cry and saves them.