Our Confidence (Sun Stand Still Part 2)

If you missed my last post, I am sharing a bit about what I'm learning from a book by Steven Furtick called "Sun Stand Still". When I think about Joshua's boldness to ask God to make the sun stand still on His people's behalf it more than challenges me.  How many times have I prayed prayers where I don't really expect God to answer?  There have been times when I've felt like praying about a certain thing was the right thing to do, but I didn't really have any confidence that God would actually do something.  Or often, I'll qualify my prayer with "If it's your will, God", when really that's a cop out. All it does is keep me from having to pray with real faith because if it's His will then I don't have to really bother believing what I'm praying for.  FAULTY LOGIC!!  Bill Johnson says "What is vital for us to learn is the role that humanity has in bringing about the activity of the sovereign God into the affairs of man."  Prayers offered in faith change things.  I feel like God is prodding me with Joshua's story.  He was a man totally surrendered to doing what God wanted.  He knew the character of God and what God wanted and so he believed and prayed accordingly for God to move here on the earth. I love what Steven says about this...
   
The posture of surrender will result in radical steps of faith and a confidence that flows from a heart that's fully devoted to God's plans.  The key is getting a clear and correct view of God, believing that God is actually who He says He is.  And that He can do what He says He can do.  I could write story after story about men and women who asked God for the impossible.  I could cite endless examples of people who dared to believe they were created and saved to do more than settle for the lowest common denominator of faith.  Hebrews 11:33-34 says that these were people "who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies."


But until we have a right picture of God, this is all just a history lesson.  Without an accurate vision of God, we cut ourselves off from the very One who enables us to have audacious faith in the first place.  You see, great men and women of faith don't have some special spiritual DNA that God injected into them.  What makes them unique actually has very little to do with them.  Because when you get right down to it, they are no different from you and me: full of fear, plagued by sin, and riddled with insecurity.  What makes world-changing people unique, audacious and powerful isn't their perfection.  It's their understanding of God's perfect nature and purposes in the world.  This God is someone worth taking risks for.  This God is someone worth praying Sun Stand Still prayers to.  What these men and women of faith believe and experience firsthand about God drives them to settle for nothing less than extraordinary faith. 


Knowing God is great enables you to dream, pray and live beyond your means because you know He is able to respond.  But you must also know that He wants to respond.  Until you believe God is with you and for you, fear and hesitation will characterize your life.  While you may believe God is capable of accomplishing the impossible in and through you, you will not necessarily believe he desires to work through you. 


When Peter gets out of the boat and walks on water to Jesus...it's not until his foot hits the water that his faith is demonstrated.  It's not until he risks failure, embarrassment, and physical harm that the supernatural power of Jesus starts working on his behalf.  Audacious faith is based on who God is, what he's already done, and what he will continue to do.  He is faithful.  It is HE who will prove that He's got what it takes.  The unfailing faithfulness of God - not our capability or performance - is the ground of our journey in audacious faith. God didn't encourage Joshua according to Joshua's faith. He encouraged Joshua according to His own faithfulness and ability...


"No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life.  As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you. " - Joshua 1:5 

I think the bottom line is this.  If we really KNOW the character of God and believe that He's out to set all things right and make all things new...that He longs to heal the broken-hearted and bind up their wounds, to set the captives free, to bring abundant life, to heal our diseases, to give sight to blind eyes, to bring us out of darkness and deepest gloom and break away our chains, to turn our mourning into dancing...if we really KNOW this is the God we love and serve then it changes everything.  It gives us confidence to ask boldly for these things in prayer because we KNOW it is His very nature to do them. 

I don't want to sit by anymore uttering half hearted prayers of "God, if you wouldn't mind...".  I want to approach God boldly and confidently according to WHO HE IS and what He longs to do on this earth.  God is responsible for the outcome of my prayers, not me.  But, I am responsible to pray...to ask...to believe that I am asking things of God that He desires to answer! 

I think this is especially important as we consider the least of these in our prayers.  Is God a God of death?  NO. He came to abolish death.  Is He a God of disease?  NO. We see Jesus healing every person that came to Him in the New Testament.  Is He a God of hunger?  NO.  He fed the people who were hungry.  Is God a God of slavery?  NO.  He came to set the captives free. 

Again, the magnitude of these issues in our world today can make the boldest person of prayer shy away from asking that they be demolished.  What is God really going to do for the 27 million slaves in the world?  How is God going to address the 160 million orphans in the world?  What is God really going to do for those who are starving?  We know that there will always be darkness until Jesus comes to set things right once and for all, but that does not mean we are to sit idly by twiddling our thumbs waiting for Him to come back. We are to be people of fervent, bold prayer and of equally bold action, who believe that God desires we ask audacious things of Him because He WANTS to answer us.  He desires to transform our world through us if we would just ask. 

If you're going to have the audacity to ask God for something, you'd better be ready to act.  Audacious prayer must be tethered to practical obedience or else it's not faith.  It's just wishful thinking and positive mental energy.  No wonder so many of our prayers aren't answered.  We pray for a miracle but fail to make a move.

God, may we be people who pray and LIVE audaciously.

Sun Stand Still (Part 1)

"The tragedy of our time is that we've taken what was meant to be ordinary and made it exceptional.  We've declared audacity off limits." - Furtick

I picked up a book at the bookstore a few months ago sort of accidentally.  I went to get another book, but they didn't have it and somehow I ended up with "Sun Stand Still" by Steven Furtick in my hand at the checkout counter. That might be one of the happiest accidents of my life.

I'm sure many of you are familiar with the story tucked away in Joshua 10.  For those of you who aren't or are a little rusty like I was, here's the gist as Steven writes it:

"From every angle this story showcases the kind of audacity we're after.  And it all hinges on a preposterous prayer.  As the chapter opens, we read that five opposing Amorite armies were planning to attack. Having decided to strike first, Joshua led his entire army toward the Amorites on an all-night march.  Sometime during that march, God spoke to Joshua.  He told him 'Do not be afraid of them; I have given them into your hand.  Not one of them will be able to withstand you.'

At dawn, the Israelites unleashed a surprise attack, and right from the beginning the battle went well.  When the enemy lines broke, and the Amorites started to flee into the valley, Joshua's men chased them down.  And God got personally involved.  'As they fled before Israel,' the account reads, 'the Lord hurled large hailstones down on them from the sky.'  Then, as the sun sank toward the horizon, Joshua faced a decision.  The victory wasn't complete, and once it got dark, the rest of the Amorites would slip away.  But Joshua was determined to fight on.  Perhaps he realized that if he didn't destroy the enemy now, Israel's conquest of Canaan would grind to a halt.  Maybe he knew that anything less than total victory would conceal God's presence and glory.  Besides, he remembered God's promise in the night.  

Most of us would have called it a day.  I've done all I can do.  I've exhausted every option.  I've given it all I've got.  But Joshua wasn't most people.  He refused to go out like that. That wasn't the way it was supposed to end.  This was where his audacious faith began.  Joshua sized up the situation, summoned all his available courage, and delivered one of the most gloriously unorthodox prayers in the entire Bible:

" O sun, stand still over Gibeon, O moon, over the Valley of Aijalon." (verse 12)

Joshua had the audacity to ask God to make the sun stop in the sky.  To freeze time on behalf of His people.  According to scripture, God gave Joshua exactly what he ordered.  Just when the Amorites were hanging on for the cover of darkness, darkness never came.  Just when they thought the curtains were about to drop on their day from hell, God came out for an encore.  

"The sun stopped in the middle of the sky and delayed going down about a full day.  There has never been a day like before or since...surely the Lord was fighting for Israel!" (verses 13-14)

The skeptic in me has all kinds of questions: Did God actually stop the earth on its axis?  I don't know the answer to how He did it.  I choose to believe that the same God who intervened to bring his Son back to life intervened on this day in history to help His people.  He chose to answer Joshua's outrageous prayer.  Maybe instead of trying to figure out the technical answers, we should be asking a more relevant question: could it be that God intends for us to have the same kind of audacious faith - the kind of faith that dares to believe God for the impossible - as a normal way of life??"

I love that last question. It gets to the heart of the matter for me. Throughout scripture I don't see people of God praying wimpy "Dear God, if you could, please would you...". I see them praying prayers where seas parted, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, teenagers took out giants with pebbles. What I see in scripture is that these so called "radical, audacious" prayers were not the exception, they were the norm. Every time someone prayed something bold, crazy things happened!  God answered.

As I look at the way that I pray and live out my faith I must ask myself "What have I reduced God to and more importantly, why??" These things have been stirring in my heart for a few months now and I want to take the time to process them here.  But to prevent this from becoming the world's longest blog post I'm going to break it up into a few. :)

As we look at the broken world around us, the magnitude of the problems and issues can seem huge and impenetrable.  But here's the deal.  God didn't just put us here to survive...He put us here to transform the world around us.  And that transformation occurs as we come to trust and believe in the very nature of who God is,which then compels us to walk in deeper faith, praying audacious prayers and EXPECTING God to show up and do what He says He will do, just as He did for Joshua.  Joshua was nothing special. He just knew who God was and prayed accordingly.

Are we even praying boldy and audaciously?  Do we expect that if we pray and believe for the audacious that God will answer? What keeps us from praying the types of prayers that Joshua and many others like him prayed?   Are we afraid He won't come through? Do we fear looking stupid?

More to come...

The Urgency of Now

“We are not faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late. Procrastination is still the thief of time. Life often leaves us standing bare, naked, and dejected with a lost opportunity. The tide in the affairs of men does not remain at flood-it ebbs. We may cry out desperately for time to pause in her passage, but time is adamant to every plea and rushes on. Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘too late.’”


-Martin Luther King, Jr.


Time is a funny thing.  I can feel like it's crawling by like it did while we were in the adoption process or during my engagement. Other days it races by and there aren't enough minutes in the day.  When I think about my life I can often feel like I have forever ahead of me while other days I feel confronted with the reality that life is oh, so short....that the clock is ticking faster and faster. 

I think many of us spend much of our time planning for and looking to the future...a job change, a vacation, a change of lifestyle, retirement etc.  We tell ourselves that someday our lives will be different.  Someday we'll do that thing that seems so out of reach right now.  Someday, we'll be in a better place to spend our time and money in more meaningful ways.  You know, once we're out of debt and the kids are out of school and we're out from under work and extracurricular obligations and...and...and. 

Too many people's "somedays" never come.  There really IS such a thing as being too late.  As King says "Over the bleached bones and jumbled residues of numerous civilizations are written the pathetic words, ‘too late.’”  We can get to the end of our lives and regret all the ways we meant to help.  Time slipped by...in the busyness of daily life we just...well, we were too busy.  We were too self consumed to really bother with others who didn't fit our schedules, our comfort zones, our molds.  Really, we were going to do something...

The trafficked 9 year old child who was raped for the 20th time today screams that NOW is what counts.  The family running for their lives from ethnic cleansing in their country knows tomorrow could be too late.  The mother who has AIDS and is nursing her little baby with diseased milk rather than allowing it to starve knows the urgency of today. The orphan who will age out of the orphanage in a week with no hope of ever having a family knows that time is short. The HIV+ patients who have free medication but can't afford the basic food that's required to be eaten with their medication know the urgency of today.  The teenager in Russia with her head being held to a log with an axe forcing her to service man after man knows the urgency of now.

We can tend to think of getting to the grocery store, making it to practice on time, climbing the corporate ladder or paying our bills on time as urgent.  Here is what I honestly believe - we wouldn't know urgent if it slapped us in the face.  It would do us worlds of good to walk a mile in someone else's shoes and have our perception of urgent re-shaped.    

I do not want to get to the end of my life (which could be an hour from now for all I know) having ignored the people who have lived every moment in a state of emergency.  I do not want to stand before my God and look Him in the eye and tell Him that I really meant to do something... that my heart went out to those people.  For whoever it is that I am meant to help during my time on this earth, I do not want to be too late.  

There IS an urgency of now.  Now is ALL any of us have.  We are not guaranteed our next breath.  Now is a gift that we have been given that was never meant to be squandered.  What are we doing with it?    

Here Am I

I got to spend a few days last week at the Christian Alliance for Orphans Summit in Louisville.  Almost 2,000 people in one place with hearts to live out the calling of James 1:27 to care for the orphan in their distress.  I had the privilege of listening to story after story of how people's lives had been wrecked, changed and influenced by choosing to take a step of faith. 

It's funny how I didn't hear many stories of how people had been caring for orphans all their lives, but rather they had been going through their days pursuing what they thought was a full life and God got ahold of them and radically redirected their paths.  That sounds a little familiar to me. :)

I heard stories of people adopting HIV+ children from Ethiopia in the midst of great criticism.  Carolyn Twietmeyer shared how she went to Ethiopia because the daughter she was in process of adopting was very ill and literally on the brink of death.  This little girl desperately needed a blood transfusion but in Ethiopia they don't give out "good blood" to people with HIV because they don't want to waste it on people who are dying.  Turns out this adoptive mom was a match for her little girl.  While she was there nursing her little girl back to health, she found out that her soon to be daughter had two other siblings living on their own in Ethiopia.  Long story short, all three siblings are now adopted and living together here in the States. Check out what this amazing family is doing to fight the stigma of HIV+ children HERE. 

I heard stories of churches in cities across America banding together to take in every single child in their local foster care system.  Their goal is that when a child enters the foster care system that the first call that is placed is to a local church with an active group of foster families who are ready to take in children.  It's so encouraging to see the Church rising up to do what we have been called to do.  Is it scary?  Yes.  Does it require sacrifice? Absolutely.  But, what is life really if not the laying down of our own lives for others?

I heard a pro football player share about how God moved in his heart and he and his wife have now adopted around 8-10 kids...I think they have 4 biological as well.  He is using his influence with his teammates to create adoption funds for families who cannot afford to adopt. 

There was so much love represented in that room of people.  So much sacrifice.  So much joy.  So much passion.  This is the beauty of what happens when God transforms our hearts to beat as His does.  The cost doesn't seem steep anymore...sacrifice becomes the very thing we chase after because it draws us close to the heart of God.  As we watch these precious little lives being transformed before our eyes, we are reminded that God has done that very thing for us. 

Psalm 40:1-3 says: "I waited patiently for the LORD; He turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God."

There are around 150 million or so orphans in the world today stuck in the slimy pit of abandonment, abuse, disease, loneliness and worthlessness. Their hearts are broken.  Many feel hopeless. And God's answer for them is you.  It's me.  It's people willing to break out of their comfort, their financial security, their routine, their safety, and engage with the children who are crying out to be seen. 

"Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” And I said, “Here am I. Send me!” - Isaiah 6:8

I am so often guilty of not uttering those words - "Send Me!".  I sit back because it seems others are doing the work and meeting the needs.  But God knows that us saying "Send Me" is just as much about what He wants and needs to do in our own lives as it is about how He wants to use us in the lives of His little ones who are broken and hurting.  "Send Me" should be the cry of my heart because it will lead me into deeper knowledge of who God is and fullness of life.

I pray for a release from selfishness, fear and comfort for us.  I pray that we will start asking God what He wants us to do for His children who have been discarded like trash, who are suffering because of circumstances out of their control.  As we say "Here am I.  Send me!" may our confidence rest in the God who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds.

Grateful

So thankful today that God allows me to be mama to my three sweeties...

They are precious gifts to me that I do not deserve.  It is a privilege to nurture and help shape their little lives. 

And I'm so thankful for my own sweet mom who has always modeled what selflessness and love look like...

I also can't think about Mother's Day without thinking of Tariku's birth mom, Bogalech.  She loved her son so much.  In a culture where women who gave birth out of wedlock were shunned, she acted bravely.  She didn't leave her son in the woods or abandon him on the side of the road like many in her situation have done.  She nursed Tariku for three months and then took him to his birth father so that he could have a better chance at survival.  She knew she could not care and provide for him.  I have no idea where she is today.  I have never met her and simply know a skeleton of her story.  I can only imagine what she must feel as a mother who is separated from her child.  Her sacrifice has been our gain and there are days I don't know how to feel about that.  I have so much sorrow for the impossible choices she had to make...and so much admiration for the bravery it took to make them. 

I just have no idea what she must have felt as she handed Tariku over to his birth father... what she must feel wherever she is today.  I just know that she has given us the most precious little boy on the face of the planet.  And I can't thank her enough for that. 

Bogalech, Happy Mother's Day.  You have a beautiful boy with a generous, kind spirit and the brave heart of a warrior.  I know he must have gotten some of those traits from you.  There are no words to properly thank you for what you have given our family.  I know the cost must have been so great to you and I pray that your heart heals as time passes.  Your son is happy, healthy and beautiful.  I hope somehow you can sense that.  I love you and I thank you from the depths of my being. 

Happy Mother's Day to ALL the moms in the world...may you be blessed today!

Without Seeing

I love Easter.  It means new life for those of us who believe that Jesus, the Son of God went willingly to the cross to make a way for us to experience life abundantly.  No longer stuck.  No longer shackled.  Free to live in fullness.  Yes, I celebrate this in my own life today.  Somehow, in all my frailty and failings I move His heart.  You and I move the very heart of God.  So much so, that He sent his son to this earth - to shatter our darkness and bring us joy and life.  Is that unbelievable or what??!!

John 10:10 sums up what Jesus came to this world for beautifully.  He says:

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly."

Jesus rescued us.  And He didn't just die on the cross so that we could go to heaven.  He rescued and paid the price for us so that we can live ABUNDANTLY now.  Today.  This very moment. 

Many of us might just be trying to get through the day.  Life can be hard, there's no doubt about it.  It can feel exhausting and most days we have more questions than answers.  The circumstances of life can lead us to doubt God's intentions toward us.  But they are clear from scripture - He came to give us abundant life.  Abundant means "present in great quantity; more than adequate; oversufficient: well supplied; abounding: richly supplied".  He has made a way for us to live our lives richly supplied - despite our circumstances. 

Remember Thomas in the Bible? Doubting Thomas.  He had been convinced that Jesus was the Messiah - the One that was going to right all the wrongs.  Yet, as Jesus hung on a cross and died a bloody, gruesome death, I imagine his hope drained as Jesus' blood flowed out from His body, and as He took His last breath. 

It's no wonder that when Thomas' friends told him that Jesus was no longer dead and that He had risen from the grave, that Thomas didn't believe them.  Along with the death of Jesus had come the death of his hopes and dreams.  He told his friends "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."  A week later Thomas and his friends are hanging out behind locked doors and suddenly Jesus appears out of nowhere. 

Thomas doesn't believe it's Jesus, but then Jesus says to him "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

Ouch.  Don't I want to see?  Don't I want to see with my eyes answers to my prayers?  Don't I want some sort of proof that God is worth it? That He's real and that He's good? I want to see, but Jesus is saying that those who believe without seeing are blessed.

It makes me think about my friend, Elizabeth back in Uganda.  She is around 17 years old and her mother died of AIDS while she was young and so she grew up with an alcoholic father who abused her.  Then the Lord's Resistance Army invaded her village and she was forced to flee from her home.  She and her sister did their best to survive and get by on their own.  She ended up at a school where she lives now, trying to get an education so she has some sort of hope for a future.  Everything in her life has been difficult and unstable.  But look at her.

Those eyes have seen so much in her young life.  Yet she smiles, and believe me, it's not forced.  She smiled almost the whole time I was with her.  You would think someone with her life experiences would be embittered, angry and doubtful of God's intentions towards her.  But, she's not.  She believes without seeing.  I asked her what she wanted more than anything and she responded "to serve the Lord".  She loves God so passionately it just radiates from her.  People would look at her life and hear her story and say that she has no reason to believe in God...there are few external circumstances in her life that point towards a God who loves and cares for her. 

But she knows it.  She believes it deeply.  She believes without seeing.  She believes without doubting, unlike Thomas.  And there's something about her countenance, about her words, about the fervor with which she speaks.  She is living in the blessing Jesus promised those who have not yet seen but believed.

“Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

I think that like Thomas, Jesus knows that sometimes we need to see Him.  That we need evidence of His presence and movement in our lives.  But, man, I want a heart like Elizabeth's.  I want to be able to know and trust God's love for me in the middle of circumstances that make no sense.  I want the blessing of believing without doubting.

May this Easter be one of choosing to believe even when we don't see.  May we trust in the love that compelled the God of the universe to send His son to earth to die so that we might live richly supplied, abundant lives through our faith in Him.

Remember this: He has been better to you and me than we deserve. We're forgiven and redeemed by the power of God. And even if He never does anything else for us, His single act of love on the cross demonstrated His goodness for all time. - Steven Furtick

Our World is Transformed - Tariku's Gotcha Day

"The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed."


I honestly don't know how to even write this post.  I have so much emotion today that if you were reading this on a piece of paper the letters would be smeared with my tears.  Words just don't seem adequate.  Any time you bring a child into your family it is a beautiful moment, and that's no less true when you expand your family by adoption.  On April 9, 2010 we weren't thinking about paperwork getting approved, court dates or travel arrangements to Ethiopia.  We weren't waiting anymore.  Our son wasn't waiting anymore.  We were living the moment we'd been dreaming of for two years.  We were laying tear-filled eyes on Tariku for the first time in person.  Bliss!

I remember kneeling down on the classroom floor and him walking into my arms for the first time.  I thought my heart would explode.  This precious little boy who had been mistreated and severely malnourished was throwing his arms around my neck and kissing me on the lips.  And his smile...oh his smile!   He was perfection.  He longed to be loved, and oh my gosh...how we loved him immediately!  All I could think of was that everything was going to be okay.  We were going to wrap our arms and hearts around him and he was going to experience love like he had never known.  We were going to love him so fiercely that his tender, wounded, little heart was going to heal.  Perhaps what I never saw coming was how much he was going to heal me.

I can't tell you how many times people have told us what a good thing we did when we adopted Tariku...how we rescued and saved him.  I know they are well meaning, but it always makes me cringe.  We didn't do some extraordinarily good thing - we just did what God put it on our hearts to do.   And as for the saving and rescuing...we didn't rescue him.  God saw a little boy in a desperate, lonely situation and chose to put us together as a family.  For those who still would say we rescued him, I would say that he rescued us right back.  

I would say that he has brought a fullness of life to us that we never could have envisioned.  He rescued us from ourselves.  He rescued us from self-centeredness, from fear, from lives we likely would have lived with blinders on.  He has shown us what courage and hope look like.  He has helped us to see what our life's purpose is.  He has shown us again what God does with brokenness and pain - how He rebuilds and restores. How nothing is wasted.  He is a living, breathing masterpiece...a testimony to the faithfulness of God. There is no doubt that as much of an impact as we have had on his life, he has by far impacted and blessed us more.  There's just no two ways about it.  I guess that's how things work in God's economy. How humbling and awesome.  God knew we needed this precious little boy, just as much as he needed us.

And today we celebrate him. We celebrate the moment we became a family.  We celebrate the unbelievable little guy that he is.  But most of all, we celebrate the amazing God that we know and love....the God who took us on a journey halfway around the world to glue all of our broken pieces back together and to unlock in us something deeply profound and beautiful.  We are so incredibly grateful.

Hope you enjoy this sweet video about our journey to Tariku...many thanks to our dear friend, Dan Smoker, for the time, love and energy he put into making it for us.  

Getting My Feet Dirty

I don't know if you can relate, but isn't it really easy to just talk or write about things without ever really experiencing them?  I think we do that a lot in our culture, and especially as the Church.  Talk, talk, talk with maybe a dash of action thrown in here and there.  How sad.  I'm guilty of it.  That's why today was so good for me.  I actually got my feet dirty. Literally.

It was "One Day Without Shoes" day today.  An opportunity to engage us in actually experiencing a fraction of what millions of people do every day - walking barefoot everywhere.  In my travels in Africa I have seen a lot firsthand, but I realized today that I haven't actually walked in their shoes (or lack thereof).  I find myself really surprised by how I felt today going barefoot everywhere.  I was so aware of the fact that I was uncomfortable.  But, the biggest source of my discomfort really came from the realization of just how hard it must be to go through even just one day in life without shoes for so many in other countries.  And the ground I walked on today couldn't have held a candle to the treacherous conditions people walk on daily.

I rolled out of bed onto my soft carpet, walked out into my garage on the smooth, cold concrete, got in my car to the welcome of soft carpet again on my feet, walked to the mailbox on the mildy annoying textured concrete sidewalk, then back into my house onto the smooth, hard wood floors.

The worst I experienced all day was my friend's gravel driveway.  Ouch.  You should have seen me babying myself with each step on the little rocks.  You would have thought I had a sprained ankle by the way I was walking on the gravel.  But, it was a reality jolt for me.  My mind immediately went back to the Rock Quarry in Uganda where I saw people navigating jagged rocks barefoot, many of them with bleeding feet.  And I was instantly thankful for the opportunity to in some small way identify with the people I had met that day in Uganda.

And then my son, Tariku.  He had never known a pair of shoes on his feet in his four and a half years of life until he got to the orphanage. He'd been barefoot since the day his toes touched the ground in Ethiopia. I asked him about it tonight and he vividly described the first pair of shoes he received at the orphanage - a pair of rubber crocs. Let me tell you...having that pair of shoes was a big deal to him.

Going barefoot today made it more real for me.  Such a small, simple thing to not wear shoes for a day.  My friend Layla didn't have a reason to leave her house today with her kids but they talked about the kids in the world who can't go to school because they have no shoes and the people whose toes and feet are eaten away by infection because they don't have any foot protection.  Then they all walked down their long, gravel driveway barefoot to get the mail.  Just that one simple exercise left a big mark on her kids.  I love that.

It's just so easy to settle in and stay comfortable with the way our lives are here in America. It was so good for me to have a little bit of a reality jolt today.  If you haven't noticed, I tend to talk a lot about poverty and it's impact here on my blog.  I can so easily tire of all the talk, as I'm sure can you, not to mention God.  It felt right today to actually do something to help make the connection between my words and my heart...to shake myself out of my frequently self-centered rut.

There is something special about identifying with someone else...in acknowledging their reality. Isn't that what we celebrate this month? God sending His son to identify with us?  God put skin on so that He could feel what we feel and experience our pain and suffering. He is the ultimate example of what it looks like to walk in someone's shoes, or lack thereof. And I'm pretty sure He modeled that because He knew that identifying with one another is where we come alive and fully into who He made us to be.

All that from just one day without shoes. Go figure. Wonder what would happen if I REALLY took a risk identifying with others...

"The way of Jesus is about our descent. Its about our death. It’s our willingness to join the world in its suffering, it’s our participation in the new humanity, it’s our weakness calling out to others in their weakness.”- Rob Bell
   

One Day Without Shoes

Okay...so what's the weather like where you are?  Is it gonna be hot, cold, rainy, snowy, muddy where you live tomorrow?  Imagine the conversation at the office or school or the grocery when you join me and thousands of others and show up barefoot tomorrow.  Wait.  Why are we going barefoot tomorrow??????? 
MILLIONS of people in the world go barefoot every day and in an effort to raise awareness of that fact, April 5th is the day we go ONE DAY WITHOUT SHOES.  Just one.

Did you know...

Many children in developing countries grow up barefoot. Whether at play, doing chores or going to school, these children are at risk:


•A leading cause of disease in developing countries is soil-transmitted diseases, which can penetrate the skin through bare feet. Wearing shoes can help prevent these diseases, and the long-term physical and cognitive harm they cause.

•Wearing shoes also prevents feet from getting cuts and sores. Not only are these injuries painful, they also are dangerous when wounds become infected.

•Many times children can't attend school barefoot because shoes are a required part of their uniform. If they don't have shoes, they don't go to school. If they don't receive an education, they don't have the opportunity to realize their potential.

When we were in Uganda, we met people whose feet were literally oozing from sores and infection due to the fact they walked barefoot day in and day out.  There are bugs called jiggers that burrow into the skin and cause infection.  Many of the kids we saw in uganda were walking around with feet that looked like this:

Walking in the wrong places without shoes can cause serious health problems which can lead to paralysis.  Can you imagine having to live your life paralyzed simply because you didn't have shoes to wear?? Here in the U.S. we are likely hard pressed to ever think about the fact that people all over the world suffer because they lack one thing that our closets are bursting with - shoes.  All it takes is one pair to do the job. 

Tom's Shoes is a great organization that gives one pair of shoes to someone in need when you purchase one pair.  That's great math.  Get a pair.  Give a pair.  Check them out for an easy way to help put a dent in this crisis. 

Talk to your family and friends about this and consider going without shoes tomorrow.  What a great way to help people learn that there are millions going barefoot every day who have no other choice.  Sometimes, we don't know how good we have it.  So, as you walk on the smooth pavement, on the carpet in your house or on the grass tomorrow barefoot, be thankful.  There are millons of folks walking on hot roads with sharp rocks, glass and metal who don't have the luxury of knowing a day WITH shoes is coming.  But with your help it can. 

Get one.  Give one.  There's no time like the present.  www.toms.com

Together

My house is full right now.  Our good friends from Cincinnati are visiting on their spring break and sleeping in Tariku's room, while Tariku is sleeping on my bedroom floor (I had to remove him from my bed due to his excessive snoring and his inclination to make snow angels in his sleep which leads to a very rude awakening in the middle of the night for this mama...but, I digress...), our friend's daughter is sleeping in my girl's room with my two, their two boys are sleeping on an air matress in the play room, and then two more of our friends from Cincinnati came as well and are sleeping in the guest room.  Packed house.  And you know what? I LOVE it!!

We all cooked together, ran to the store for and with each other, walked to get the kids at school together, sat and watched them play together, hiked together, watched Africa videos together, prayed together, laughed together, tried to light a grill together, shared meals together, and even sat on the couch and looked at our iPhones together. :)  And this whole week I've been thinking about what a blessing "together" is.  That "together" is what we are made for.  We are made for community, to "do" life with each other.  Moments spent together are richer and more meaningful.  They are just so GOOD!

I am unbelievabley grateful for my "together".

And this all on the heels of a meeting I sat in on today where we talked about the number of kids who are aging out of the foster care system here in the U.S. with nowhere to go and no hope for their future.  1 in 4 are incarcerated.  They are three times as likely to commit suicide.  They are more prone to trafficking and prostitution.  They are more likely to be homeless.  We talked about young mothers who are pregnant and alone with nowhere to go...the hopelessness they must feel...the loneliness.

Where is their community?  Will they ever know the meaning of "together"? Who is going to cook and laugh alongside them? How are they to get through life without strong relationships?

I have to admit, I spend the majority of my time thinking about what is going on in Africa, a land full of people I dearly love and feel that God has carved a very special place in my heart for. But I feel like God expanded my heart today.  He peeled back another layer and allowed me to see what is right in front of me to do.

There are people all around me who have no community and know no love.  What does it cost me to reach out and mentor a kid who's aging out of the system?  Not much.  What does it look like to befriend a scared, young woman who's going to give birth soon?  How much of my time would it really take to help them know the meaning of "together"?  Not much.

I am excited about what's on the horizon...you'll be hearing more as things unfold.  But the point for now that God is whispering to my heart is that "together" is a gift He's given us that we in turn are to give to each other. We are meant to live in community and in relationship with one another.  ALL of us. No one should miss out on the awesomeness of "together".

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.