Kisses from Katie

I don’t recall having ever been moved by the Forward of a book before.  But here it is.  These are the first few paragraphs from the book Kisses from Katie about a 19-year old girl who moved to Uganda and become “mother” to 14 orphans and ultimately to the entire village.  I’m just starting the book and I’m already moved.

“People who really want to make a difference in the world usually do it, in one way or another.  And I’ve noticed something about people who make a difference in the world:  They hold the unshakable conviction that individuals are extremely important, that every life matters.  They get excited over one smile.  They are willing to feed one stomach, educated one mind, and treat one wound.  They aren’t determined to revolutionize the world all at once’ they’re satisfied with small changes.  Over time, thought, the small changes add up.  Sometimes they even transform cities and nations, and yes, the world.

“People who want to make a difference get frustrated along the way.  But if they have a particularly stressful day, they don’t quit.  They keep going.  Given their accomplishments, most of them are shockingly normal and the way they spend their time each day can be quite mundane.  They don’t teach grand lessons that suddenly enlighten entire communities; they teach small lessons that can bring incremental improvement to one man or woman, boy or girl.  They don’t do anything to call attention to themselves, they simply payattention to the everyday needs of others, even if it’s only one person.  They bring change in ways most people will never read about or applaud.  And because of the way these world-changers are wired, they wouldn’t think of living their lives any other way.”  ~Forward by Beth Clark.

That inspires me.

Photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/noxstar/3072400338/”>Espen Faugstad</a> / <a href=”http://foter.com”>Foter.com</a&gt; / <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/”>CC BY-NC-SA</a>

Hello Lord

Hello Lord, it’s me your child.  I have a few things on my mind.  Right now I’m faced with big decisions, and I’m wondering if you have a minute.  ’Cuz right now I don’t hear so well and I was wondering if you could speak up.  I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person and hear what you’re saying, but right now I just can’t hear you.

I don’t doubt your sovereignty.  I doubt my own ability to hear what you’re saying and to do the right thing.  And I desperately want to do the right thing.  But right now I don’t hear so well and I was wondering if you can speak up.  I know that you tore the veil so I can sit with you in person and hear what you’re saying.  But right now, I just can’t hear you.

And somewhere in the back of my mind I think you are telling me to wait.  And though patience has never been mine, Lord I will wait to hear from you.  Oh, I’m waiting on you!  Right now I don’t hear so well and I was wondering if you can speak up.  I know that you tore the veil so I could sit with you in person and hear what you’re saying.  But right now, I think you’re whispering.

 

Home is where my heart longs to be

I have been feeling so “homesick” lately.  But not for my Minnesota home.  I have been missing old friends that I’ve had to say good-bye to.  Spring is coming, which means another round of saying good-bye to friends who are leaving at the end of this school year.  Missionary life is a constant round of good-byes, and it makes my heart ache. 

I deeply long for Heaven- where I will never again have to say good-bye.  I get so weary of this life.  I want to shout, “Enough already!  I’m ready to go home!!”  I want to jump into the air and just continue going up and up and up, never again feeling my feet thudding back to the earth.  I don’t belong here.  I want to go home.  I am longing for Heaven.  

(I don’t remember if I’ve shared the lyrics to this song before, but I love it.)

 

Going Home

By Sara Groves

I’ve been feeling kind of restless.

I’ve been feeling out of place.

I can hear a distant singing,

A song that I can’t write, and it echoes in what I’m always trying to say.

There’s a feeling I can’t capture.

It’s always just a prayer away.

And I want to know the ending, things hoped for but not seen

But I guess that’s the point of hoping anyway

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table

Going home, I’ll meet you in the air

And you are never too young to think about it

I cannot wait to be home

I’m confined by my senses

To really know what you are like.

You are more than I can fathom

And more than I can guess

And more than I can see with human sight

But I have felt you with my spirit

I have felt you fill this room

And this is just an invitation

Just a sample of the whole

And I cannot wait to be going home!

Going home, I’ll meet you at the table

Going home, I’ll meet you in the air

And you are never too young to think about it

Oh, I cannot wait to be going, to be going home!

Face to face, how can it be?

Face to face, how can it be?

Face to face, how can it be?

And this just an invitation

Just a sample of the whole

And I cannot wait to be going home.

In the Name of Love…

There is a chapter in the Bible that is commonly called “The Love Chapter”.  No it’s not in Song of Solomon… but if you want a sweet little blush on this Valentine’s Day, read that aloud with your Spouse.  No I’m talking about 1 Corinthians 13.

Here’s a challenge for you today as we focus on Love.  The Bible says “God is love,” but what does that mean?  Here in 1 Corinthians, we have a tangible measure of what Love is.  Try this challenge:  Read 1 Corinthians and insert your name in place of the word “love.”  Now read it again and insert the name “Jesus.”  This is what love should look like.  Jesus is the standard against which all human loves should be compared.  See, we fall short each time.  Jesus is the definition of love in the flesh.  And while you are thinking about THAT definition, think about this measure of love:  God showed his love to us in this way, that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Now read this with your name in place of “Love”

Love is patient. Love is kind.  Love does not envy.  Love does not boast.  Love is not proud.  Love is not rude.  Love is not selfish.  Love is not easily angered.  Love keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not enjoy evil but is happy about the truth.  Love always protects. Love always trusts.  Love always hopes.  Love always perseveres.  Love never fails.

(Did you throw up a little in your mouth as you read that?)  Now read that with the name of Jesus in place of “Love.”  That’s who loves YOU.  Happy Valentine’s Day from your Beloved Jesus.

Prone to wander

Well, believe it or not, I goofed up yesterday.  I know, oh the horror, right?  Well, I have my blogs programed to go out on their own dates so I can write them ahead of time.  Unfortunately I forgot that there were THIRTY ONE days in January.  I didn’t realize that I left out a post for Jan. 31 until late yesterday evening, and by then it was too late.  I know, you’re heart broken.  I’m like the cable guy who said he’d show up between 9am and 5pm and I ring your bell at 5:15pm.

Anyhow, I’ve been thinking of this old song a lot lately.  Because Fridays are supposed to be more laid back, I’m going to post the lyrics for you.  If you’re not into poetry, that’s OK.  Just come back to the blog next Monday because I’m really excited about next week’s series of articles.  I hope you will enjoy them as much as I am enjoying writing them.  So here’s today’s thoughts:

I grew up in an old fashioned church were we sang the old hymns every Sunday.  I still love the poetry and the theology we find in those old hymns.  They are rich and deep even though the melodies can be tired and out of style.  One of my favorite hymns has been given a fresh life.  ”Come Thou Fount,” version by Sara Groves, rings in my heart and mind over and over again.  I AM prone to wander.  It’s me.  The lyrics “Oh to grace how great a debtor daily I’m constrained to be…” are from my heart too.

V1: Come thou fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing your praise
Streams of mercy never ceasing
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet
Sung by flaming tongues above
Praise the mount I’m fixed upon it
The mount of thy redeeming blood

V2: Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let your goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to thee
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Here’s my heart Lord,
Take and seal it
Seal it for thy courts above

Bridge: Prone to wander, Lord I feel it
Prone to leave the God I love
Prone to hear you and not heed it
Prone to scorn you in your love
Prone to wander
Prone to wander

V3: Oh to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be
Let your goodness like a fetter
Bind my wandering heart to thee
Jesus sought me while a stranger
Wandering from the heart of God
And He to rescue me from danger
Used his own precious blood

Still I Rise- by Maya Angelou

Today feels like a Maya Angelou poem.  This poem makes me feel spicy and sassy, just like a good Friday should be.  Enjoy!

Still I Rise- by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

Jesus calls a boy with a lunch

My 11-year old daughter Emma wrote this story for school.  It’s based on the story of Jesus multiplying the loaves and the fishes.  I really liked her point of view and I asked her if I could post it on my blog.  If you like it, leave her a word of encouragement.  She wants to be a writer someday.

I was on my way home with my small lunch.  I only had two small fish and five loaves of bread.  It was enough for my mom and me.  On that day I saw a miracle.

I was walking when I saw a crowd.  I thought it was so big it must have been the whole village!  Then at the corner of my eye I saw some men.  I stared for a while to see what they were talking about .  I slowly walked over to them.  A man looked at me and smiled.  He came over to me.  ”Do you have your lunch in there, little boy?”

I quickly responded.  ”How did you know?” I asked.

He said in reply, “I know everything, and now may I please look at your two fish and five loaves of bread?”  I was amazed, and he did know everything.  I gave him my basket.  ”Thank you Peter,” he said.  ”Peter, will you have lunch with my disciples and me?”

I was honored.  Though when we sat down I thought, “This man may be amazing, but he can’t feed his disciples, himself, and me.”  He gave a loaf of bread to one man named Andrew.  Andrew broke the bread and handed some to Philip, but when Andrew looked at his bread it was a whole loaf!  Philip had the same!

The next thing I knew, that one man had feed the whole crowd!  When we finished and the disciples were collecting the extras, I asked the man, “Who are you?”

He smiled and replied, “I am Jesus Christ.  I know what you do at 6:00 a.m., and I know your name.  I know that you are curious, and I love you.”

~The End

As a mom, I thought that was pretty good!  If you feel like it, please leave Emma some encouraging feedback and I’ll let her log on to my blog tonight to read your comments.

The Call

I don’t feel like I was ever specifically CALLED by God to be a missionary.  It’s more like I volunteered… over and over again.  OK, I begged, “Pick Me!  O-o-o Pick Me!”

In his famous devotional, My Utmost for His Highest, Oswald Chambers said, “ The call of God is not just for a select few but for everyone. Whether I hear God’s call or not depends on the condition of my ears, and exactly what I hear depends upon my spiritual attitude.”  When Isaiah was in the Presence of the Lord, he overheard God ask, “Who will go for us?”  And Isaiah volunteered.  Isaiah’s heart was listening to God.  He didn’t need a personal invitation, he heard God’s heart and delighted to satisfy God’s desires.

A famous quote by William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, says,

“‘Not called!’ did you say?  ’Not heard the call,’ I think you should say.  Put your ear down to the Bible, and hear him bid you go and pull sinners out of the fire of sin.  Put your ear down to the burdened, agonized heard of humanity,and listen to its pitiful wail for help.  Go stand by the gates of hell, and hear the damned entreat you to go to their father’s house and bid their brothers and sister, and servants and masters not to come there.  And then look Christ in the face, whose mercy you have professed to obey, and tell him whether you will join heart and sound and body and circumstances in the march to publish his mercy to the world.”

So what are you doing TODAY to answer the call?  I will close with one more quote from William Booth.  He said, “Go for souls.  Go straight for souls, and go for the worst.”

John Lennon Imagines…

I watched the Times Square New Year’s Celebration on T.V. last night.  I wasn’t really interested in anything they were doing, it was just kind of a cultural tradition to observe.

At one point in the program they had the lead singer from “Train” singing his version of John Lennon’s song “Imagine”.

I thought, “This is a horrible song, but I cannot think of a more appropriate description of what we have become as a nation.  We have realized John Lennon’s Imagine song and look where it has gotten us.”

Lennon crooned: ”Imagine there’s no Heaven.  It’s easy if you try.  No Hell below us.  Above us only sky.  Imagine all the people living for today.”

Living for today requires you to deny the existence of an afterlife which might possibly include judgement for our actions.  What a convenient way to negate consequences, just bury your head in the sand.  This is what happens to people who live only with today in their sights.

They rack up debt with no thought to how they will pay it back.

They become hedonists who just live for the next “good time”- party animals.

They get drunk and get behind the wheel of a car.  Every day in America, 27 people die in drunk driving accidents.  Living for the moment makes you reckless with the future.

People who live only for today have sex outside of marriage, get pregnant, and eventually have a legal abortion.  There have been over 53 million abortions in the United States since Roe v. Wade was legalized in 1973.  If there is no heaven or hell, this is no big deal.

There are approximately 34 million people living with AIDS, both adults and children.  I would venture to guess that the majority of them did nothing to deserve this horrific illness.  How cruel do we have to be to deny these poor people the hope of Heaven, a better life after this wretched one?  Only someone who is eager to avoid God’s judgement for himself would rob another of his hope for something better.

John Lennon has been dead for 23 years now.  I would like to ask him if he would care to revise this song now.  He sang what we have become.  We rang in the new year with a self-righteous hymn to our own glorious imagination.  But what if Lennon was wrong.  What if we are wrong.

Here’s to all of us who do not live self deluded.  Here’s to all of us who WANT a Heaven and who FEAR a Hell.  Here’s to all of us who don’t consider living for today to be a noble way to conduct ourselves.  Here’s to all of us who actually care about what God thinks of us.  Let’s do this thing right.  Let’s rip off the blinders and look Truth square in the face.  Here’s to a year where we don’t have to rely on the imagination of a drug addict to find a better way to live because Jesus has already revealed it to us.  Here’s to the year of our Lord 2013.

Joy in a Feeding Trough

In those days, Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman world.  (This was the first census that took place while Quirinius was governor of Syria.)  And everyone went to his own town to register.  So Joseph also went up from the town of Galillee in Nazareth to Judea, to Bethlehem because he belonged to the house and line of David.  He went there to register with Mary who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child.

While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born.  And she gave birth to her first-born, a son.  She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger because there was no room for them in the inn.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby keeping watch over their flocks by night.  Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared to them, and the glory of the Lord shown around them, and they were terrified.  But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid.  I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all people.  Today in the town of David, a Savior has been born to you.  This shall be a sign to you, you will find the babe wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Suddenly a great company of heavenly hosts appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the Highest!  And on earth, peace to those on whom his favor rests!”

When the angels had left them and gone into heaven, the shepherds said to one another, “Let’s go to Bethlehem and see this thing that has happened, which the Lord has told us about.”  So they hurried off and found Mary and Joseph and the baby, who was lying in the manger.  When they had seen him, they spread the word concerning what had been told them about this child, and all who heard it were amazed at what the shepherds said to them.  But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heard.  The shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things they had heard and seen, which were just as they had been told.

(Luke 2:1-20)

There is no Grinch.  There is no Santa Claus.  There are no reindeer, no elves, no talking snowmen.  There is no tree, no wish list, no long lines at the cash registers.  There is no greed.  There is no family feuding.  There is no drunken office party.  This, and only this, is the true meaning of Christmas.  A Savior has been born to us.  We are offered a peace-child, a covenant between us and God.  Forgiveness.  ”The Bread of Life” was laid in a feeding trough.  And we feast!  Now go and tell everyone what you have seen and heard!