this day's been crazy but everything's happened on schedule...

this week has been a learning experience.

i think maybe God is trying to teach me patience.

or at least a measure of trust.

and yet...its all been okay.

i have become aware, this week, that i will not be returning to nursing school (unless a large miracle occurs) in the Spring as i had initially imagined. was i devastated? yes.

my last five years have been devoted to nursing school. as the epitome of what i defined as success, it seemed the end-all to worth, and self esteem. when asked "what are you up to these days?", nursing school always emerged first. as if i had to make sure that i got that out there, and it set the standard that "im doing something productive, see?" and then i could mention all the other, inconsequential things that i am doing. then i could breathe easy, as long as the other person (perhaps a classmate from high school, or a family friend) knew that i had my life together and was, in fact, accomplishing a superb career.

and then it was gone.

and i realized that i had to swallow hard and say..okay Lord. I get it. I get it.

its not about what i do. its about who I am. better yet, its about Who You Are, and who that, in turn makes me. when your definition of success is taken from you, you have to grasp onto a new definition of success.

maybe it will be the fact that i feel God is caling me to work with sexually trafficked little girls in Ethiopia. success in the world's eyes? probably not really. it's a low paying job, with eternal repercussions. there are little girls the age of my precious niece who are being violated in ways no one should imagine.

and no one is there to hold them. there's even more that defines who i am. i want to get to the point, when people ask me what i am up to, that i say "im loving people. im loving my family. im feeding the homeless. im advocating for children who dont have a voice. im living my life slowly. im savoring the moments before my nephew gets too big to hold in my arms. im smiling more. im running every day, because i love the freedom i have when i run. im listening more and talking less. im praying without ceasing. im spending time people who are drug addicts and alcoholics and inviting them for dinner so i love them like Jesus."

isnt that success?

nursing school...yea. it was important. i made decisions that catalyzed it disappearing. im aware of that. but im eager to step into the Story that God is not yet done with. maybe He wants to move me to another country and let me work for free to save the very least of these. maybe He wants me to get a grip on the events in my nation and my world so i can better see like Him. maybe He just wants me to be Still.

and listen.

i dont know.

i dont have a major.

i dont have a class schedule.

but i have a God who Loves Me Beyond Measure. He died for me. and He will never leave me nor forsake me.

He is still writing. it's not done.

His plans are perfect.

His schedule always runs on time.

ten thousand children.

10,000 children and all I can do is just talk.
While my house is full of possessions that negligence bought.
Everyone tells me that I'm not to blame,
Why do I still feel the same?
Only love can save us all.
Only love can save us all, save us all.
10,000 children are my invitation to change.
To continue in excess now suddenly feels oh so strange.
Prayers and money should not be confused,
But I pray that both still are used.

Only love can save us all.
Only love can save us all
What will become of me?Inside of history
10,000 children and all I can do is just talk.
-dave barnes

today is national aids day. do more than just talk.

i
need
africa
more
than
africa
needs
me.

facedown

last week i sat in my SOMA (greek for body: a christian group on campus dedicated to changing our campus with the gospel) group and was completely unengaged. you know, that feeling you get when you are physically in attendance, but you are emotionally absent? that's where i was. having just received my SECOND failing calculus quiz after working very hard, i was discouraged, and struggled to pour my heart into worship. oh, i sang. i read, i prayed. but engaged in the connection with my Saviour? in true communion and fellowship? nope.

i was not in the posture for worship.

i didnt know there was a posture for worship. but the Lord has been revealing there is.

and its facedown.

i mean, facedown.

smudging our noses with dirt. eyes to the ground.

grass stained knees.

thats where i desire to be. because i know where standing gets me. Psalm 1:1 says "Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers."

look at that. "who does not walk", "or stand" "or sit".

how bout kneeling? how about facedown?

singer Mark Hall says that that verse, to him, demonstrates the way we can so quickly edge into sin by starting out walking, then we stop and stand, and before you know it, we are sitting. wallowing in depravity. distracted. keeping company with those who mock what Christ lived for. so why dont we let our knees being us closer to humility? i know why i dont. i am prideful.

i let my knees stay strengthened by pride.

i brace myself up on selfishness.

i secure my head with distraction.

i dont want to get "dirty".

i dont want grass stains on my knees.

i dont want dirt on my forehead.

but God is calling me to throw myself down.

okay Lord. draw me down. into a posture fit for worship. facedown.

Churched

My earliest memory is of church. I distinctly remember toddling down the aisle at church in California: ambulating my pigtailed, three year old self past several rows of pews. I even remember what I was wearing. Grey flannel overalls with little black puppies peeking over the edge of the front pocket, like watchdogs set on guiding little me safely down to the stage. I am not sure what exactly I was headed towards, or even what the pastor had called me down for. I am not sure whether it was about Jesus or not. I only remember one thing: he was holding fruit snacks. And to me and my pigtails, he might as well have had the world.

Matthew Paul Turner has memories of church, too. In fact, that’s what his latest book is all about. Close on the heels of his quirky, provoking, and sometimes controversial books aimed at twenty-somethings, Turners proffers a new type of book: a memoir. He moves effortlessly through a graceful portrayal of life in a fundamentalist Baptist church, where legalism reigned supreme, and the mercy of God shone through in rare moments. Indeed, the grace of God weaves itself like a ribbon through the poignant and wrenching tale. And it’s funny. Did I mention that? I laugh and cry through a lot of books, but during Turner’s retelling of the creative censoring of cinematic masterpiece ‘Ben Hur’, I was simultaneously gasping for air and crying buckets. He narrates in painfully funny detail, his first haircut, which deemed him a satisfactory Baptist: “To my father, this haircut was about much more than doing away with my Bobby Brady mop. It was about me looking like a Baptist. I think my father thought that the angels in heaven would be a good bit happier once my head looked as clean-shaven as a Marine’s.” He discusses his first Sunday at the new church, describing the feeling as “being kidnapped by Puritans, except without the witch trial and the dunking booth”. He does such a masterful job at retelling the “Barbie burning”(a very innovative way of “scaring the hell” out of him and his Sunday school peers) that one very nearly can smell the scorched plastic.

Turner is a storyteller. With “Churched”, he joins the ranks of Donald Miller and Anne Lamott, with a loping, candid pace that carefully and meticulously shuffles along. ‘Churched’ is like those moving escalators at the airport: you step on and it moves so steadily you start to become comfortable and relaxed, and before you know it, you’re being shuffled off right back into the real world, thirty yards closer to your destination. Maybe this book will move people closer to a destination of a more genuine love affair with Christ’s bride, His church. “Churched” is not a stab at parish life. In fact, it is a kind, benevolent look at a life clouded by legalism, where the grace of God shone extra bright. Rather than bitterly recollecting the hurt and confusion he felt as a child, Turner approaches it with an optimistic cheer, urging us to examine how we view church, and what it means to follow Jesus. He ends with a moving paragraph, and I wept when I read it. “Last Sunday, Jessica and I went to church. It was Easter. A couple people got baptized. The guy sitting next to me took two smoke breaks. I closed my eyes during the praise and worship. Pete gave a sermon about hope. We took communion.
I wasn’t afraid.”
I’ve always admired Turner for his gritty and droll style, and was ready to leaf through another jaunty book where I would laugh and maybe learn something about being a college student in the twenty-first century. At least, that’s what had happened with his previous works. I was wrong. I read it through overnight. I couldn’t put it down.
I cried.
I laughed.
And then I opened it and read it all over again.
I learned something about myself. How I view church. What my role is in the body. Why I come every Sunday, Why trips down an aisle don’t guarantee a heart right with God. That no matter how many sermons we annotate or people we convert, it comes down to loving Jesus with the abandon of a child and an eagerness to do His will.
Even without fruit snacks.

***I AM GIVING AWAY A COPY OF CHURCHED! COMMENT WITH YOUR BEST 'CHURCH' STORY AND I WILL CHOOSE A WINNER NEXT WEEK!***

blood on the doorposts of the universe

i bought a cup of coffee for a man two nights ago at Starbucks.
i handed it to him, steaming coffee on a cold night, and
it moved from my hands to his.
my hands, smooth from little real manual labor, smooth from being protected by the elements of the outdoors, smooth from a life lived in plenty, hands that have never known whats its really like to want,
hands that are always abundantly, excessively, full.
to hands weathered by cold and heat, hands that extend to beg.
hands that i know fingered a trigger to fight in Vietnam,
hands that daily peel duct tape off a roll tucked into a backpack to mend his eclectic wardrobe.
hands that pick at a broken guitar.
his name is Todd, and he is homeless.

i dont know that what i did was right. i know full well that Todd is capable, and indeed, should get a real job and stop begging on the streets. i know that much of what he does with the money he gets is spend it on alcohol and cigarettes.
but i also know that in that moment, all i knew was the movement of mercy that stirred in me as i slid my card across the counter and ordered a second latte.
he needed that coffee. and i needed a reminder that i am not my own.


i have been reading the new rob bell book, 'Jesus wants to Save Christians'.
i am going to be honest, i am on the fence about rob bell. his writings have changed my life, in that i have been awakened to the state of the Church as a whole, my role as a Christian, and how that looks like, to Love, to extend grace, to live out the words coming from my mouth.what does that look like?

numerous situations have arisen this week that have challenged me to rethink how i view Love.
was it loving for me to buy a coffee for him? maybe. rob bell says that there is blood on the doorposts of the universe. as i stepped into starbucks that night, a child died in Africa. as i slid my plastic money across the counter, a little girl wept in Ethiopia. as i jammed my key into the ignition of my Taurus, a little boy woke to captivity in Mali. What am i doing about it?

where is Love, where does Jesus show up in situations like that?
what difference am i making?

i heard a great speaker at the last show i worked publicity for, and he said "If you woke up this morning, in a bed, with food and a dollar in your wallet, you are in the top 1% of the world."

the top 1%.

he said "Jesus has put us at the front of the line, and asks us "What will you do with this now?"
i was talking to a friend the other night, and was so frustrated with myself for caring so much. i get so passionate about poverty and hunger and abuse, and i still live my life exactly the same.
i guess what i want is a heaviness that i am justified in caring. I want God to move me so i dont forget that i am not my own, that caring is something He has placed in me. I want a heart humbled and moved to mercy. I want hands that will scrub the blood from just one doorpost. i want theburden of loving the world.

did you feel that?

Donald Miller says "It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life will reveal answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things"

simple things...and maybe not so simple.

yesterday i worked at the salvation army for four and a half hours.

i folded clothes and stood side by side with a woman who was a former drug addict.

i sorted hangers with a woman who told me that she was a former prostitute.

and i am ashamed to say...i judged them first. i mentally attached their former lifestyles to their names. and i inwardly cringed at my lack of compassion.

and then God nudged me.

hard.

and He gave me a glimmer of what it means to look with compassion and look with mercy and look with eyes that remember...i am no better. i felt blinders slip off my spiritual eyes. and i listened. and that drug addict became a woman torn and broken, hurt and lost. she became a woman with four children to raise. she became a single mom who wishes she could afford to get her kids halloween costumes that are brand new so they dont get teased at school. she became a woman who forgot that she is worthy of Love.

that prostitute became a girl just older than me. someone i might have had class with, someone i might have bumped into at starbucks on a friday night. a girl who carried wounds behind her eyes that the heavy makeup could never disguise. someone i needed to know. and someone that i realized, as her hand moved, sorting hangers into boxes...bore the mark of Jesus' awakenings to me. and as God moved me to look, truly look, i saw. i heard Him speak. "do you think you are better than this? That scarlet letter is yours too... as much as you are Mine, she is Mine. and she is worthy of Love."

nudge.

do you get it, He asks, do you see Me?

are you watching?

earnestly seeking for the moments when I lift the blinders and nudge you?

if you dont watch, you will miss it.

nudge.

did you feel that?

and so i ask you..where are you spending your time. God moved me this week. He showed me where He would spend His time. it was right there. he overrode my poor attitude and opened my eyes. He moved my heart to where His is at..with the broken. Billy Graham says the ground is level at the foot of the cross. Level it out, God.

letters from war

i found a large stack of photos in a box my mom dug out the other day. my grandma was sitting next to me as i flipped through a stack of sepia toned photos, immediately engaged by the handsome uniformed soldiers...about my age probably..but they seemed so much older. in their eyes they carried the weight of a war that i never knew. i paged through about forty five photos. windy beaches that would months later bear the blood of sons and brothers, and smiling groups of soldiers, arms draped round shoulders..the same arms that would hoist each other across battlefields and into trenches. every photo had no name. just a face. a smile. a flash of light reflected across clear, optimistic eyes. a sheen of sunlight illuminating crew-cut blond hair.
i flipped through stacks and stacks, as my mom and two aunts also laughed over old family photos, and they shared stories i had never heard before. i listened.

then i happened to glance up at my grandma.

and the stacks of photos froze in my hand.

and for a moment, i became privy to what it meant to be a war bride. i watched her eyes well up with tears. i watched her hands unfold a letter stamped 1943 and smooth the yellow paper as she read the graceful script. i felt her heartache as a i watched emotions flicker through her eyes. i felt what it must have been like to be married to a man in the service. i was humbled. and i realized that for every moment of freedom i enjoy, for all the rights that are mine....there was a man who fought for them. and there was a woman who fingered letter after letter. women who were wiping away tears of their own as they wiped runny noses and messy faces of their little ones, little ones who asked when daddy was coming home. women who said "i do" to tours of duty and lonely nights and goodbyes.

i considered all this as i watched my friend michelle in her wedding dress yesterday afternoon. beautiful and serene, holding tight to the arm of her husband, a Lance Corporal in the Marines. i listened to her say "i do" with clear confidence because she knew that no matter what, God is going to hold her together, a lesson i have watched her learn with such grace and poise, i am honored to call her my friend.
and i was thankful. that there are women who are called to the high honor of being a war bride.
the wars may have been 64 years apart, but maybe michelle will one day unfold letters and remind her granddaughter that freedom is never free.

thanks grandma.

deliberate period.

i like tattoos. but not real ones. i like my weekly, meticulous, sharpie ones.

every monday, i take one of those amazing fine-tip sharpies and inscript my left wrist with a word, saying, or scripture, whatever the Lord is showing me that week. the past few weeks have said things like
'hope.'
'peace be still.'
'love is here.'

tiny bits of what God is revealing to my heart in my walking with Him.
after every word, i place a deliberate period.
because i believe that when God says hope, He means Hope.
When God says 'Peace be still' He means...Peace Be Still.
That tiny dot signifies a finality.

a close.

a moment of stillness.

i work at a physician's office, where often i meet people who question the pieces of art emblazoned on my wrist. usually they ask how long ive had it....i usually laugh and say 'oh..two hours'. then they ask what it means. but last week's was different. i heard a podcast two weeks ago that changed my life. it was from a guy named steve chalke. an ordinary man with an extraordinary message. his message is about trafficking, but more importantly..its about ending trafficking and oppression around the world. that's right. end. with a deliberate period. he shares a story about the early gladiator games..where christians would be killed for sport... did you know how they ended? one man got so disgusted at the games that he started yelling during a particularly gruesome match. and he stood up and cried 'stop in the name of Jesus...stop.'
no one heard him. so he tried louder, this time stepping down the steps of the amphitheater which held over 60.000 people. still no one heard his cry. 'stop in the name of Jesus, stop."
he walked further down...repeating his battle plea, as blood dripped onto the arena, mingled with the dust and sweat of the prisoners who were being killed. finally, he crossed the last barrier, slipped his sandal onto the arena floor and hurdled the low wall...until he stood in front of this crowd. in those days, it was common for there to be a comedy act or skit during this portion of the match, or for an additional slave to be brought forth and killed. everyone thought he was a joke. or a prisoner. so they came after him, baring swords and shields as he stood alone.

and as they killed him, with his final breath, he cried

stop. in the name of Jesus...stop.

and the theater fell silent. one man stood up and left.
then another. then another
until 60.000 people were gone.
and all that remained was one man, lying in the dust.

a deliberate period.

he ended the public gladiator games. and after his death, people stopped going. they saw it for what it was...glorified murder. but he ended it. period.
and so on my left wrist i wrote in tiny, solid letters, stop the traffik. and people started asking.
and i told them that in Mali..there is a little boy who was sold into slavery so he can harvest the cocoa beans that we purchase in our supermarkets. and that in Ethiopia, a little girl sleeps on the pavement, afraid to close her eyes because of the evil around her. and that in Thailand there are women my age who never got to be little girls at all.

steve chalke says that the christian life is like a beautiful ballet. it cant be summed up in a minute-long summary..it must be danced. what are we leaving behind? deliberate periods? until we start standing up to this evil..it will remain. he shared a simple way to combat it...stop consuming. stop leaving behind commas, which invite the next sentence of evil and oppression to march onward.
start leaving periods. stop buying chocolate thats not marked 'slave free', or 'free trade'. stop shopping at stores where slave labor is encouraged. it takes research. it takes effort. it takes hurdling that last low wall, and it mean getting closer to the swirling dust and drops of blood.

but we have to be deliberate. period. we have to dance.

i'm churched....are you?

today i found out i was chosen to be a part of a my first blog tour!

i will be reviewing my friend Matthew Paul Turner's brand new book, Churched.

i am so honored to be a part of this, and hope you will check back often to read my review and any new updates about the book! it's going to be really fun.

here's what the book is all about...

"in this first-hand account, author Matthew Paul Turner shares amusing–sometimes cringe-worthy–and poignant stories about growing up in a fundamentalist household, where even well-intentioned contemporary Christian music was proclaimed to be “of the devil.” churched is a collection of stories that detail an American boy’s experiences growing up in a culture where men weren’t allowed let their hair grow to touch their ears (“an abomination!”), women wouldn’t have been caught dead in a pair of pants (unless swimming), and the pastor couldn’t preach a sermon without a healthy dose of hellfire and brimstone. Matthew grapples with the absurdity of a Sunday School Barbie burning, the passionate annual boxing match between the pastor and Satan, and the holiness of being baptized a fifth time–while growing into a young man who, amidst the chaotic mess of religion, falls in love with Jesus."-Multnomah Books

Sounds like fun, doesn't it? I'm thrilled ;)

feel free to leave comments and feedback, and any questions!

walking to beautiful...and watching for God

I hadn't heard of the Fistula Hospital til a few weeks ago, but when a friend mentioned what it was, my curiousity led me to look it up on the internet. When small girls are thrust into poverty, often things get so ugly, that they are sold to husbands who are much older by parents who have reached desperation. For some, their parents never wanted them, so they grasp for the last shred of hope they have: an arranged marriage to what looks like a prosperous man. What it turns into is a glamourized type of child abuse, where ten and twelve year old children suffer sexual abuse at the hands of men who have multiple wives, concubines, and partners. These precious girls are exposed to diseases, but more importantly, often become pregnant as young as ten or eleven. Since their bodies are not ready for childbirth, these girls endure horrific obstructive labor, where the baby often dies. What the little girls are left with is a obstetric condition called a fistula, where they are unable to prevent incontinence. They become the unwanted. The outcasts. The untouchable. Imagine it.

I watched several ten and twelve year olds at church camp this week, tipping out of canoes, laughing and playing with their friends.

Across the world, there are ten and twelve year old girls huddled on dirty sidewalks. Sleeping in their own urine. Left to die an outcast, with no children, shunned by the 'husband' who proferred them such wealth and prosperity.

In Ethiopia, there are 100,000 women and little girls suffering from fistulas. There are 2 million women in the world suffering from fistulas right now. And all this is fixable. There is a hospital in Ethiopia who offers these women a simple medical procedure that will give them back their lives. Do you know how much it costs to give a ten year old her life back?

$450.00.

I was blown away. I want to be a nurse, and potentially a doctor someday. I have been enthralled by the new show Hopkins on ABC, where medical students work through the highs and lows of residency for the audience of America. And I realized how quickly our priorities can go awry. I want to be a doctor. Why? Is it the glamour? Is it because I want to help people? I heard a message from Louie Giglio recently where he asks "Have you had an encounter with Jesus? Have you REALLY?" I realized we can say all the right things...I can stream podcasts, I can read through my bible in a year. I can go to church three times a week and raise my hands in worship. But has God moved me? Has He shaken me to my core? I think that maybe He is working on it. Because when I read the stories of these girls in Ethiopia, girls who I might have been friends with when I was ten...I got uncomfortable. I got restless. I realized that if I become a doctor, I would HAVE to go to help those girls. I would have no option. That's how moved I was. My friend Daley Hake recently posted a blog about how we "are not what we do". He, a brilliant photographer, explained how he prays to be 'more than a brand', that he wants to be remembered for MORE. I want to be a nurse/doctor. But I want God to move me deep within. I want to sense His presence in the eyes of those girls as they get their lives back. I want God to overflow from me at my work. I want everything I do to be filtered through the realization that God is big enough. That I am not what I do. But that what I do must be overflowing from an Encounter with a Saviour.

So I will watch.

I will wait.

I will let God move me.

And as I sleep tonight, I will remember that across the ocean, a little girl in Ethiopia sleeps too, waiting for an encounter with her Saviour too.

Watching for God. Maybe He's closer than I think.


"God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house.
God is in the silence of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives.
God is in the cries heard under the rubble of war.
God is in the debris of wasted opprotunity and lives

and God is with us if we are with them."
-Bono

a picture i took, and some i definitely did not take.

i snapped this today at the field where we were working with 'wheelchairs for the world'. it came out pretty neat. natural light, heightened contrast, shot on manual setting, with black and white.

i have been so inspired by these two photographers:

mariano friginal, whose photography you can see here: www.marianofriginal.com
and mr. daley hake, whose photography is simply stunning. see his amazing pictures here
www.daleyhake.com.

one more balloon

slam. the phone hit the wall. silence. "...and i cant get away, cant get away..." i think, in my sleep deprived state, i realized what an ironic ringtone i chose. it seemed cute when i chose it, but at 645, it was downright mocking. the day went slightly downhill from there. i stumbled out of bed to answer the phone, which summoned me to work three hours earlier than i had planned. this meant that the time i had alloted for my freelance writing was now shoved back til when i got off work at 6pm. work was no better, i was rooming people in the wrong places, mixing up charts, and slowly wading through prescriptions that i couldnt pronounce. i made one very significant blunder that i caught as the doctor was in the room with the patient. i feverishly wavered between praying she wouldnt notice, and bracing myself for the moment when she did. when the door opened, i just knew i was in for it. i had forgotten a vital step of taking an oxygen level, and i was well aware that was a faux pas that was nearly unforgiveable. out came the physician...and she called me into her office. i could feel the tears welling up already. i was exhausted, clumsy, and forgetful all day, and i knew i deserved the chastisement i was sure would come. what i got was an act of mercy.

as i walked in to the office, and sat down, i felt the doctors eyes on me and i lifted my head.
i was met with a smile.
"grace...i just want you to know that you are doing a tremendous job." thats all.
with a wink, she had just done the impossible. extended Love in a moment when Law would have been expected, even justified.

i knew she had noticed my blunder, and still, she knew what i needed. rob bell tells this compelling illustration of Grace in his book, "several years ago, i conducted a wedding ceremony on a saturday afternoon in june. the bride wore a white summer dresss, the groom a white linen shirt. they insisted on the most simple ceremony possible. it was held in a park in a grove of trees. their family and friends stood in a circle with the three of us in the middle. i began with a welcome, they exchanged vows and rings, i prounounced them, they kissed, everyone clapped. the ceremony took seven minutes. they were then handed a cluster of helium balloons. the balloons were symbols of their past marriages, pregnancies they had chosen to terminate, relationships that did not last. as a picture of starting over, they wanted their first act as a married couple to be letting the balloons go. they walked into the grove of trees. just the two of them. standing in knee deep grass, exchanging words only they could hear. then they raised the balloons and let go. we watched the balloons float away til they drifted from sight.
there are moments you wonder if youll ever forget. moments that sear themselves on your conscience. that moment was one for me.

a few years later their marriage imploded.

she moved an hour away,

they divorced.

i finish with this story because life is messy. gut wrenching, risky. things dont turn out well. sometimes they dont turn out at all. sometimes everything falls apart. we're tempted to shut ourselves off, fortify the walls around our heart, and forge ahead, vowing we'll never open ourselves up again. but i have to believe that God can put anything back together.

i have to believe God that Jesus invites us to trust is as good as He says He is.
loving
forgiving.
merciful.
God does not run out of balloons."

seventeen dollar sunglasses

i squirm every time the videos come on. you know the type...sweeping orchestral background, moving portraits of children dying in Africa, villages ravaged by war and disease. they always make me so restless. i just want to pack up and move away and sell all my posessions and go save children. one of my friends had a different take on those videos though. he said "you know what those videos make me think? how absolutely depraved i am. i look at them and i dont think 'wow they have it rough.' i am blown away by the thought that...wow. look how i am living. why in the world did God choose to bless me in this way?" we got to talking about child sponsorship, and realized that the main problem with it (its a wonderful thing), but we realized its a tiny bit selfish. as Americans, as the church, we tend to like problems to go away. by tossing a check in the mail, i can appease the twinge of guilt, and emotionally 'check out' of the problem. a christian speaker once opened his talk with college students with,

"while you slept tonight, 33.000 children died of starvation."

so what do we do with that piece of information? we toss a check in the mail, we buy a "inspi(red)" shirt at Gap. we sport the bracelets, the bumper stickers, we join causes on facebook.
and still we are emotionally detached. i can look at the picture at the top of this post and feel my heart stretch to encompass that precious little boy. but tomorrow morning, my first thought will be the laundry i have to do.
that my car is out of gas.
that i had better go grocery shopping.
and kids are dying in haiti. mothers are dying in africa. kids that should be doctors and lawyers and nurses are starving to death. eating dirt.

dirt.

my friend drew summed it up with "if i sponsor a child, i know thats all i will give that child. i wont give any more than a few bucks in the mail. i cant be involved in that childs life. we are just so selfish. today i bought seventeen dollar sunglasses. i will lose them in about three weeks. and i think 'how in the world are we living like this'?"
i think we have to pray for restlessness. i never want to become comfortable with forgetting. i want to be restless. i want to be stirred. i want to always have that yearning to go. but i want to do it out of gratefulness. giving motivated from a prick of guilt is nothing. giving from a heart overflowing with gratefulness to a really big God is everything. we can still buy our seventeen dollar glasses. but i want to always walk in restlessness, propelled by the realization of the mercy of God, and the knowledge that we will never be at home here. One of my favorite songwriters, Australian Brooke Fraser wrote a song that says "Now that I have seen, I am responsible. Faith without deeds is dead."

make me restless, oh God.