Hope

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Protecting the innocent

God's loveA 6 month old little boy died this week. I saw it on the news last night. His mom’s loser boyfriend neglected him and he died…

Another news story came on right after that one: A mom left her 4 children home alone and the house burned to the ground. Thankfully, all of the children escaped and are now in protective custody. At least they have a chance at a good life now.

I will never understand neglect and abandonment.

How could anyone harm an innocent child?

Children are an inheritance from the Lord. They are precious gifts! The most important thing someone can do is be a parent. When I think of the number of children who are suffering because of negligence and abandonment, my heart breaks.

I remember what it was like to grow up without parents. I had so many unanswered questions and I didn’t even know how to express them.

  • Why wasn’t I good enough for them to stick around?
  • What’s wrong with me?
  • Do they even love me at all?

I wrestled with these questions for years. It wasn’t until I became an adult and allowed God to mend my heart that I finally understood the truth:

  • It was never my fault.
  • There is nothing wrong with me.
  • I am loved deeply by my Heavenly Father.

One of the strongest desires of my heart is to share this truth with children who have been abandoned, abused, or neglected.

These children are not damaged goods. They just need to be told the truth and given some hope.

Psalm 68:5-6 says:

A father of the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy habitation. God sets the solitary in families.

I strongly believe that it is up to Christians to provide love and support for hurting children. Mentorship, foster care, and adoption are three great options that can forever change a child’s life.

 

 

 

 

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The hope of a new year

2016 New Year

2016 is just hours away. The hope of a new year is upon us.

I know there are naysayers out there.

Can you hear them?

“New Year’s is just another day. If you can’t change today, you’ll never change in a new year.”

They’re not incorrect….just a little too cynical for my taste.

January 1, 2016 will be another day. Nothing magical will happen to make change any easier.

But the new year is special.

The possibilities are endless and you will change in 2016 because it’s impossible to remain alive and not change in one way or another.

The choice is up to you: Will you use the new year to change for the better or for the worse?

I looked in the mirror today and didn’t recognize myself. I have been changing so much and so fast that it surprised me.

Who is this chick looking back at me?

I’m moving 11 hours away to follow God into the adventure of a lifetime.

2015 changed me and I am better for it.

My emotions are all over the place.

I’ve been fighting back tears and waxing nostalgia and bubbling with excitement all at the same time.

Dad tells me I’m normal, but I feel a little bit crazy. I’ve never felt this much emotion at one time before. (At least, not in a healthy way.)

Take some time this New Year’s Eve to feel things out.

Count your blessings.

Set some goals.

Look in the mirror.

I bet you won’t recognize yourself in 2017.

 

 

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The gift of empathy

7-christmas-tree-backgroundI bumped into a bad memory last night. It happens from time to time….

I allowed myself to think back to the people involved, the events of the evening, and the décor of the room.

The emotions were strong and I found myself gasping for breath. I was choking–trapped–in the moment and all I wanted to do was run out the door.

I’m sharing this story with you because I learned something in the process:

You can deconstruct the past, face the truth, and then move on.

The reason people remain stuck in the past is that they never learn how to see it from a place of freedom.

I am free from the pain, shame, and guilt of my past. (Notice that I didn’t say sadness of my past. It’s not possible to remove the sadness.)

With time and a year of counseling, I stopped seeing my past as a bully that’s holding my present hostage and casting a shadow over my future.

I can now face up to the memories instead of running from them.

Christmas will be here in 3 days and Facebook posts are already warning us to be sensitive to the hurts and pains of others.

No one can have a good Christmas (and don’t even think of sharing your joy online) because hurting people will be scrolling through their newsfeeds.

This kind of attitude is detrimental.

Even if everyone didn’t share about their holidays, there would still be hurt in the world.

There is nothing sympathetic about making others feel guilty. Likewise, there is nothing empathetic about walking around on eggshells.

Why don’t we comfort our hurting friends and family?

Take hold of their hands, give them a hug, and sit with them through the tears.

This is genuine empathy and it leads to healing.

There’s no magic formula for grief and sadness, but genuine empathy is the greatest gift you can give this Christmas.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Grace is the greatest motivator

“But for the grace of God” is one of my favorite phrases to describe how blessed I am. 

Paul was the first person to use this verse as an explanation of his life and ministry:

“But by the grace of God I am what I am, and His grace toward me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all, yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me” (‭‭I Corinthians‬ ‭15:10‬). 

In this verse Paul was talking about who he was because of the grace of God. The phrase I grew up hearing talks about who we’d be without the grace of God. 

Either way, the greatest common denominator is grace. 

Grace is the best motivator. 

Nothing empowers you toward change, toward action like the undeserved gift of grace. 

I try my best to see everything through this lens, especially as I hang out with non-Christians. They need to see that grace is for them. 

Do you remember what life was like before Christ?

Do you remember the patience and mercy of God during that time?

How often we forget where we started. I know that I’m guilty of this mentality. 

As a child, I was reminded quite regularly of how fortunate I was to end up on top despite of the abandonment of my parents. 

And it’s true. 

I should’ve been placed in foster care. 

I shouldn’t have graduated from college. 

I should’ve ended up impoverished or inprisoned. 

The statistics were not in my favor.

But for the grace of God…

Redemption and restoration is found through grace. There is hope for the seemingly hopeless. 

Christ in us is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27) and Christ is full of grace and truth (John 1:14). 

This is what makes the gospel such wonderful news. 

 

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Grace and Restoration, Part 1

The video project has begun! 

My dad was able to edit and upload the first video of our project today. 

I’m including the link below:

Grace over Abandonment Series, Part 1
We still have two more videos to record, so let me know of any questions you’d like for us to answer. 

Also, I plan to type out the transcripts soon. I’ll post them here on my site when I share the second video. 

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The opportunities in your reality

Did you ever watch The Brady Bunch movie?

It was a spoof from the ’90s that was not that great, but made me laugh nonetheless. In it, Mike Brady gave Bobby some great advice:

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

I’ve seen this “advice” plastered all over novelty items. (I also googled the saying and found out it’s the title of a meditation book. Go figure.) What a goofy thing to say, right? We all know that…..or do we?

Recently, I was part of a conversation where a friend said, “Do you know what I could be doing?” and then went on for about 10 minutes about a job he could have.

I told this friend,  “You’re right and I agree. But here you are, so what are you going to do?”

There’s nothing wrong with dreaming or wanting to better yourself. Just remember that improvement starts right where you are. The weaknesses we possess do not magically disappear with a new opportunity.

The more I listened to my friend, the more I understood that the root of the problem was not feeling appreciated. Maybe an elevated position, a better job would do the trick. These people would appreciate me. These people see my true potential.

Once again, there’s truth in these thoughts. There’s nothing wrong with getting praised and honored for good work. Just be careful that praise and accolades aren’t the primary motivators. Applause is momentary–and it’s fickle too.

Motivation really is everything.

What are you looking to gain from an opportunity?

Be honest.

Answering this one question will show you the motivations of your heart.

Like I said earlier, the messy parts of ourselves–the things we want to leave behind–won’t disappear. You can’t just move on and not leave the new address.

Look around. There’s a lot to learn, a lot to do right, where you are now. Don’t be afraid to dream, but don’t ignore the opportunities in your current reality either.

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The real problem is hopelessness

I saw racism at work today and it was an ugly monster.

Racism will never go away until unchanged, hateful hearts hear the Truth.

There are not adequate words to describe what I’m feeling right now. It’s a weird mixture of anger, sadness, empathy, and……..resolve. I know resolve isn’t a feeling, but it found its place inside my heart in the midst of the emotions.

The young man came into my office and told me what happened. He had the saddest look on his face. The man was hurt, yes, yet he forgave the woman immediately.

Do you know what still had him sad?

His sense of overall hopelessness.

I can’t get his words out of my head:

I guess what hurts me the most is that this kind of thing happens and no one has my back. No one’s going to do anything.

Wow.

Here’s some questions for us to consider:

What if a mentality of hopelessness is behind all of the tension–racial and otherwise–around the world?

What if our own hopeless utterances of “things just are the way they are” is keeping us from doing the right thing?

This is not me negating the importance of personal responsibility or excusing bad behavior. This is me wrestling with my own negligence while a hurting world is simply running around in the dark looking for hope.

I was convicted today because I saw a young man who was told his skin color made him less than–and he really believed it.

He was just as hopeless as the perpetrator of the offense.

Pray for him.

Pray for the perpetrator.

Pray for me.

I’m going to share the gospel with my new friend. The only thing that drives out hate and hopelessness is a Love beyond words.

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Grace changes vision

When I was an enemy of God, He decided to make me a friend. His forgiveness is readily available to everyone. It’s not available once your life looks pretty. It’s available right now.

Romans 5:7-8 says:

7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die. 8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

My heart was a mess before Christ. I tried really hard to be good. Some people even bought into my costume too.

But I knew and God knew that what I really needed was grace–God’s DNA–to make a change. Once I accepted God’s grace, everything changed. I gave up my acting career and became an honest woman.

Grace is a change in vision.

God's loveI now see people as God sees them: forgiven, free, loved, and full of potential. This is the future for those who will accept the freedom purchased by the blood of Christ.

Verse 8 says that God loves people when they are still sinners.

As Christians, we are called to love as God loves. This means that I am to love people when they are still sinners.

The exclusivity of the church from the world makes me angry.

Living in Christian Bubble Land is not included in the Great Commission.

I will not pray for anyone to be delivered from a non-Christian environment. What I will pray is that he or she will  grow up in the faith and stop being a Sissy Christian.

Sissy Christians are scared of non-Christians and don’t understand grace.

Sorry if that sounds harsh, but it’s truth.

Jesus is no sissy and I follow Him.

He defeated sin, death, and hell to give us grace, love, and mercy.

This is the Good News, the gospel we need to spread.

I think some of us forget that we were once a mess. No one asked us to clean it all up before coming to Jesus.

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Life is a story

We all have a story to tell, right?

Your life, after all, is one big story that gets written a day at a time.

Of course, every story is different in one way or another, but we all have a lot more in common than we realize.

Can you list all the movies that retell Cinderella?

Exactly. There’s too many to count.

journalThe premise is the same but the small details–time, place, etc–are what make it different.

Our world is filled with brokenness: tragedy, addiction, abuse, divorce. Listen to enough stories and you hear about these things.

No one escapes life without a few sad chapters, with pages covered with tears, blood, and grime.

I am finding, though, that the greatest stories of redemption are found in books where sad chapters give way to victorious chapters.

The victorious chapters are when the villains–and all their filthy, disgusting lies–get their butts kicked.

Love, joy, mercy, hope, grace, forgiveness…..

These are the key elements of  victorious chapters.

But you have to remember that victorious chapters cannot replace the sad ones.

No amount of time or distance can eliminate the past.

Think of it this way:

If I read a book and hate the first half, I can’t decide to only read the second half next time. The story wouldn’t make any sense.

What I can do is choose to see how the character made peace with the past in order to move on.

I said earlier that we’re all more alike than we realize.

We’re all alike because we’re all storytellers.

Maybe you didn’t write the first part of your story.

Let that go.

Focus on the story you get to write.

Focus on the victorious chapters.

And share the hope–the redemption in your story–with the world.

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Building Windmills

Choices, choices

Choices, choices

Today I needed pens for my office and I had 518 options.

Not everyone has these kind of options.

In The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Kamkwamba built a windmill using parts from a junkyard. He did it without modern tools too. 

There were no trips to Lowe’s or Home Depot to agonize over 50 brands of hammers.

And William still managed to bring electricity to Malawi.

A whole country found hope because one boy got busy.

What could be accomplished if we stopped complaining about not having the right tools? The right education? The right job?

You can own 518 different pens and never write that book. A garage full of tools and never rebuild that classic car. harnessing wind

Are too many options crippling us as a people?

My circumstances will never be perfect enough to do ___________.

Yours won’t either.

As a kid, I rarely had a complete set of toys.

I collected toys from yard sales and thrift shops. I made my toys houses out of cardboard boxes.

Countless hours were spent weaving stories in my own little world.

What I had was enough. My imagination had no limits.

And then adulthood crashed my party.

“You’re an adult now. Play time’s over.” is something I’ve heard a lot since graduating college.

But I don’t want to spend half my life hating my life.

I’m willing to pay the price for doing things differently. It’s better, to me, than waking up one day and realizing I’ve been asleep for 50 years.

Which brings me back to having enough….

Here’s my favorite definition of contentment:

Contentment is knowing that I already have everything I need to be happy.

What I have–right now–is enough.

There’s nothing I can’t accomplish if I already have what I need.

It’s time for you and I to build some windmills.