Someone's Baby

This.....

...is someone's baby.  Her mother tried to abort her, and she lived to tell about it.  You can read her story here.  And you can help stop abortion.  What will you do?

This....

...is someone's baby.  She has just been beaten by someone who said they loved her.  You can help stop family violence.  What will you do?

This...

...is someone's baby.  He was taken from his home at 8 years old and made to watch while strangers killed and mutilated his family.  You can help stop child trafficking for purposes of war.  What will you do?

These...

...are someone's babies.  Some were told they would be given a better life.  A career, money, love.  Instead, they spend their days and nights servicing male clients - sometimes 12 or more in a day's time.  Some were promised nothing, only forced to do the unthinkable.  You can help stop human trafficking for the purposes of sex slavery.  What will you do?

This...

...is someone's baby.  Her pillow is made of cold hard concrete, and she spends her days feeling worthless and ashamed as she begs for money or food from strangers who often don't even acknowledge her presence.  You can help stop homelessness.  What will you do?


Each of us individually is not able to do {everything}; but each of us is able to do {something}.  What will you do?  I pray that you will look around you at everything you have been blessed with.  I pray that you will fall on your knees in thanksgiving.  And I pray that you will then get up off your knees and go out into to the world and DO SOMETHING.

"Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me."

Matthew 25:40

~~~~~

We love because he first loved us.

1 John 4:19

It's A Beautiful Day In The Neighborhood

You remember that old Mr. Rogers song, don’t you? (Well, just in case you don’t the lyrics are below.) As a young person, I always thought the song was a little hokey, but now I see a different side to it.

Won't You Be My Neighbor

By Fred M. Rogers © 1967

It's a beautiful day in this neighborhood,

A beautiful day for a neighbor,

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

It's a neighborly day in this beautywood,

A neighborly day for a beauty,

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

I have always wanted to have a neighbor just like you,

I've always wanted to live in a neighborhood with you.

So let's make the most of this beautiful day,

Since we're together, we might as well say,

Would you be mine? Could you be mine?

Won't you be my neighbor?

Won't you please, Won't you please,

Please won't you be my neighbor?

Simple, sweet words. So inviting…literally! It reaches beyond *my* neighborhood or *your* neighborhood. It reaches out to the ends of the earth. It represents not just the immediate areas in which we live. It represents the whole of creation. It’s inclusive, it’s warm, it’s friendly, it’s welcoming.

It seems in today’s world of privacy fences and automatic garage doors, we don’t even know who our neighbors are. And once we get into our houses and turn on our televisions, we watch from afar all our other “neighbors” in our cities and in our world. We watch their lives unfold on a big screen, and we shake our heads at their tragedies. Our mouths say we feel sorry. But our hearts remain distant as we sit comfortably in our air-conditioned houses.

Do you know who your neighbors are? Let me give you a little hint: they aren’t just the people you wave at as you pass their houses each day, or borrow a cup of sugar from.

But they could be:

**The single parent struggling to feed and clothe their children, or pay the electric bill**

**The child who has been trafficked and sold into slavery for sex, labor, or war**

**The pregnant teen mom who has nowhere to turn because her family has abandoned her**

**The orphan in Africa whose parents have died from AIDS, digging through the trash pile for tonight’s dinner**

**The dad down the street who just lost his job – for the second time in a year**

**The woman you see every week at church - on the outside she looks composed and polished, but at home she lives a daily hell of physical, mental and/or emotional abuse.**

Don’t you think that when any of these people get a glimpse into your life, they would like to be your neighbor? To be included in a warm, friendly, safe place?

And “since we’re together” in this world, shouldn’t we try to “make the most” of each beautiful day WITH them?

Isn’t there always something we can each do – even ONE small thing – to extend love to our neighbors?

How about starting here:

“The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able to say to him, ‘What are you going through?’”

--Simone Weil

Listen…

     watch…

          learn…

               ask…

                    walk in their shoes.

Then…take action.

Help them.

Love them.

Lift them up.

Then, instead of just a neighborhood, we have a “beautywood”. Please, won’t you be my neighbor?

Life Clutter

Recently I’ve begun to have my eyes opened to the extreme poverty that exists in our world. I’ve been seeing images of entire families who live in a “house” smaller than my living room. They have no television, no phones, and their beds are often mats on the floor or hammocks only hung at night. It made me think about the luxuries in my life and what it is (or might be) like to live without them.

A few months ago, I discontinued my cable service. Now we get about 2 channels, and we really only watch one of those occasionally. Do we miss having cable and paying for over 200 channels that we rarely watched? Nope. That’s $65 going toward paying off my credit card debt!

I had a mowing service do my lawn for a while. And yeah…it was really NICE to come home and have the yard freshly mowed and trimmed. And it’s a huge pain in the butt to do it ourselves, but I’m saving nearly $70 a month. Half of that is going to my new Compassion child; the other half…to that awful old credit card debt.

In the age of cell phones, for the longest time I fought myself back and forth about having a land line in addition to the cell phone service. The biggest thing I was always told is that in an emergency, EMS can’t track cell phones. But at a minimum of $40 a month (almost ½ of the bill was “fees”), I decided it’s a risk I’m willing to take. I bet you can’t guess where that $40 is going. (haha)


There are other things I could (and will) “do without” as well. My gym membership will expire next March, and I’m not renewing. There’s a whole big, natural world out there to exercise in for free!


What about eating out/ordering take-out? More than once a week is too much!

Lattes? Sodas? Candy and snacks? Health-wise I should cut them anyway!


Now I’m not saying that life should be completely devoid of fun or treats. I believe that I’ve been blessed and that I am supposed to enjoy those blessings. But I also believe that a part of enjoying the blessings is sharing with others who are less fortunate.

"We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean.

But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop."

--Mother Teresa

Have you ever seen a child’s eyes light up at Christmas when they receive gifts they didn’t dare to dream about getting?

Have you experienced the beautiful smile of a homeless person to whom you’ve given money, shaken their hand, spoken to or simply acknowledged that they are a human being worthy of being noticed and loved?

What “life clutter” could you consider ridding yourself of, or at least cutting back on, in order to share your blessings with someone else?  You never know what will happen when you plant that little seed.

Fool Me Once, Shame On You...

Fool Me Twice, Shame On Me

I sit here wondering why, for all of my life,
I have allowed one person after another to make a fool of me.

Why can I not see myself

Through the eyes of God...who loves me beyond measure?

And why can't they?
What is it that makes some people feel so easy about using others?

What is it going to take

To finally say that it has to stop?

Because really, it's just a form of abuse...

Whether it is abuse from them
or if it's
self-abuse...

I haven't quite determined that yet.

There was a time not so long ago

that I would have been in a heap on my bed

Crying my eyes out

Now...

There's a certain numbness about it all

And I haven't yet determined what that means either.

This I do know...

I am slowly but surely

Being nudged to look beyond myself

To get out of my little pity puddle

And take a good, long, hard look at the tragedies

that are happening in the world around me

To move, to take action, to leave behind those things in my life

That really have no eternal bearing

And to finally fulfill my purpose in life...

To be the hands and feet of Jesus

I pray that you will join me



Desperately Seeking...

There’s a blog I follow regularly called A Holy Experience by Ann Vosskamp. Everytime I read it, I come away from it enriched; blessed; humbled; thirsting for more.






Reading about Ann’s recent trip to Guatemala has left my soul haunted. (Click here to read it yourself.)

I look at my children and my heart aches with thanksgiving that they do not suffer in poverty as so many in the world do. My heart yearns for them to understand just how truly blessed they are – oh my goodness, BEYOND blessed!

And my heart is torn apart for those that do suffer. For those that do not know the feel of a warm shower every day; the comfort of air conditioning; the feeling of a full stomach with no worry of when the next meal will come. Their own room, a tv, a computer, a cell phone…school, friends, laughter, learning.

I feel inadequate to deal with all the suffering I see, hear about, and read about on a daily basis.

The homeless.

  The modern-day slave.








The battered women and children. 

The utterly poverty stricken. 














My head spins in so many directions, wanting to help each and every one in some tangible way. And yet I know I can’t.

And I know I’m not meant to. My Father knows my heart; He has placed in me a gift and much to my frustration sometimes, it is not the gift I *wish* to have. I know that sounds ungrateful, but it’s not meant that way…I just wish sometimes that my gift was to be able to do the bigger things…but no…He has placed others in those roles. My role is more behind-the-scenes, here-at-home. And it’s no smaller than any other role, but sometimes it feels that way.

So for all those I can’t seem to reach, I offer prayer.

I do what I can to remain aware and to make others aware; to remain compassionate; to show God’s love in little ways.

I still wonder if it’s enough.

I desperately seek the answers.

In the Name of ... Jesus?

I heard a story on the radio today about a (famous) artist who creates “dot pictures” – millions of small dots placed on a canvas that ultimately make up a portrait. He has moved into the realm of what I call art with a purpose (see the entire story about him here). The particular project I heard about is “Dots for Jesus”. Each dot on the canvas represents an individual person - plain old Joes & Janes like me and you. You register for a dot (it’s free), and the only thing required of you is that you answer the question “Why Jesus?” I really want you to go read about it, so I’m not going to say any more…

BUT…

Only One

"I am only one, but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; and because I cannot do everything, I will not refuse to do the something that I can do.”

--Helen Keller

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was an ordinary Thursday for me. It was payday and I was on my lunch break heading out to the bank to deposit my check. My mind certainly wasn’t prepared for what would happen in the next 15 minutes. I turned at the traffic light onto the frontage road of the highway and began making my way up over the slight incline just before I would merge into traffic and get to the bank before they got too busy. If I arrived after noon, I would never make it back to work on time.

That’s when I saw the door of the large SUV fling open. The woman driving yanked open the door behind her and began to flail and beat at something (or someone) in the seat. My heart was pounding so hard, and I clearly was told, “Stop and go back.”