Life Is Too Short

Life is too short to worry about dirty clothes, grubby fingers and dirt on my back porch. Life is too short to keep yelling at my kids to stay out of the biggest pot in my backyard. I needed to change a rule that was set in place, and learn to let go. This wasn't a hill I was willing to die on. It was time to ease up and live a little. So to embrace letting go and learning to loosening up we went to GoodWill and bought spoons and containers to play in the dirt.

Life really is so short, and a childhood should be full of playful discovery and imagination. Childhood should always be carefully held together with love and carefully decided boundaries, but most of all they should be allowed to be children free from the challenges and cares of adulthood, that time will come soon enough. So I'm learning to loosen up, care less about unimportant things, plant my herbs out of the reach of little fingers, and most of all embrace my children's brilliant imaginations.

Favorite Granola Recipe of All Times

In this recipe I substitute the maple syrup for molasses. I love dark molasses and brown sugar goodness. The dry ingredients are whatever I am feeling like at the time. Flax is something I throw in for a healthy smokey crunch.

The wet ingredients I mix together in a seperate container and then place in the microwave for 30 seconds to better melt and mix before pouring it over the dry ingredients. This recipe is heaven in a bowl with coffee in the morning.

http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/alton-brown/granola-recipe/index.html

Speak It

Another great article from Michele's blog-

http://michelephoenix.com/2011/05/speak-it/

The Lies Mk's Believe

Just found a new blog and it has some tremendous articles. It can be something that can really help those who come into contact with children of missionaries, it can help those going to the field with children, and it can help missionary kids understand themselves better and behaviors they have. There are 5 posted here and I believe more are blogged about but are scattered. Check it out-

http://michelephoenix.com/mk-tck-resources/videos-articles-novels/

All God's Children

I am very serious about the subject of child abuse. This is not something I have a morbid fascination with or are flippant about. Most of the time the child abuse you hear about is physical and sexual. Children can also be emotional abuse and spiritually raped. Some of which I've experienced myself. I believe that this is all part of Satan's way of destroying the tender, loving, trusting spirit of a child to where they are incapable of trusting or believing in God, their great Father. It is one of the greatest tragedies the world knows.

Growing up we were incapable of coming to the aid of our friends who were being degraded, but now I'm an adult and I have a voice and I choose to use it. Each and every one of us have a voice and you must learn to use it when you see something happen that you believe to be an injustice. I love the quote:

"All that is necessary for the the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke

I've seen a lot of good men do nothing in my lifetime and it's been people I called family. It's been my "aunts and uncles" of our mission.

So I stand with my friends who have suffered unimaginable pain and shame. I acknowledge their pain. I create awareness and hope to help break the taboo of hiding abuse and not talking about it. All of you out there are WORTH FIGHTING for. So I stand with you, and am honored to do so. You are great fighters and are hero's in my book.

If you care to watch this movie, it took place in Guinea, in a little boarding school called Mamou. It happened even before I was born. It happened to a different mission. But the abuse is very similar to what we experienced at Fanda Missionary Boarding school. All the way down to the way the brave missionary kids had to fight to be heard. I sat in horror and silence too numb to cry because so much of it was my "normal." This movie comes in 10 parts. You will find the next part at the bottom below the movie.

I can't get the link to work so I'm going to have to just give you all the links to copy and paste. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Part 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3KMa8sVGqY&feature=channel_video_title

Part 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xH8c5H_7bW8&feature=watch_response

Part 3 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvfI7gSC0X4&feature=watch_response

Part 4 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxpj9QYdRTU&feature=watch_response

Part 5 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dvDJGx8M5ko&feature=watch_response

Part 6 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fiI_pkbBlc&feature=watch_response

Part 7 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE_jLUBwLP8&feature=watch_response

Part 8 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujeG09t8hZI&feature=watch_response

Part 9 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU0log7yId4&feature=watch_response

Part 10 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1K4SYMYq8w&feature=watch_response

A Beautiful Offering by Angela Thomas chapter 9 pgs. 121-123

This is such a great book. I would highly recommend it. It's the Sermon on the Mount, the Beatitudes in simple applicable terms. Instead of this nebulous thing out there floating around. I personally have to read something more sometimes to help me be able apply scripture directly to my working life, because that's what scripture is for, to be directly applied to your life so you can flourish like a plant in the light of the sun. Angela calls the Beatitudes the "When You Are's" instead of the list of "Gotta-Be's" Here's a snippet of the great teaching I've been sitting under this week with her. Hope you enjoy.

Jesus turned a corner in His sermon when He transitioned from the When You Are blessings into the As You Go instructions. We are now coming into the specific characteristics that make our lives a beautiful offering to Him. He is speaking to the common people, the “multitudes” who have just been given blessing in the kingdom. Jesus said that these are the ones to whom God gives light and salt. No one has to qualify to be salt and light except that they have divine fellowship with God by faith in Jesus.

When Jesus spoke, the crowds heard about an upside-down world being set right side up. The Pharisees had misrepresented God, and now Jesus had come to set things right. He told us that His followers have markings different from what they have seen or heard. Other people should be able to tell when a follower of Jesus is in the room. In this turning of His sermon, Jesus begins with these words to you and me:

You are the salt of the earth. (Matthew 5:13)

If we are acting like salt then we will affect the world positively in His name. You may have heard some of this before, but it’s worth repeating. Let’s run through a few of the qualities of salt:

Salt preserves and purifies. Jesus sends us into a world of people whose souls will decay without Him. We are supposed to take the life-purifying message of salvation to them. Salt does not purify or preserve inside the shaker, but only after it has been rubbed into the food. In the same way, in order for our salt to be effective, you and I will have to be rubbed into a dying world, interacting, loving, and becoming right along with them. It’s a little scary, especially if we have become the church ladies who live inside the church bubble. But the more excited I get about Jesus, the more I want to be rubbed into the world for His glory.

Salt provides flavor. The application for the Christian is to bring out the God--flavors of this world. Are you looking for the hand of God woven through our days? Do you remind others of His presence, His work among us, and His calling toward Christlikeness? Do others see the person of God because they share a life experience with you.

Salt makes you thirsty. Do you make anyone thirsty for Jesus? That is so convicting for me. Do people want more of God because of what they have seen and heard in me? Do you remember John 7:37?

If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink.

Our responsibility (as salt) is to make men and women thirsty (for God) because of our lives and then point them to Jesus Christ. His responsibility is to satisfy the thirst.

Salt is a common substance. I am so grateful that Jesus did not say, “You are the gold of the earth,” because I’d never think I was ready. But Jesus likens us to the stuff they give you for free in little packs at the fast-food restaurant. I love that. He uses the weak, the foolish, and the despised. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians,
“God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1:27-29)

I am just a single mom with four kids. A minute ago, I ran downstairs to make a peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich for AnnaGrace that she wanted cut into four triangles. After I finished with these words I need to rake the yard because I let the grass get to high before I mowed last night. I fly by the seat of my pants sometimes. I oversleep some days and I reach for something chocolate when I’m sad. It’s just me, a common woman with a common life. Do you feel common and plain and extremely ordinary? Then Jesus is talking to me and you. We are the ones He has ordained to be salt on this earth. We get to rock this world in His name. God uses small things and small people like us. We cannot let our common lives keep us from this holy calling.

Wounded Healer

I’m realizing more and more how to put a name to my feelings. I’m seeing how much I've seen NTM as a family, a protective parent of sorts. It feels so much like a parent/child relationship where they were supposed to love, support and protect its children and they didn’t. They hurt,abused and let me/us down. The “parent”, the organization that looked from all outside sources to be nurturing and caring were a very different organization when they went “home” at night and wasn’t on their best behavior. That’s when I/we got hurt. The most damaging I think was that it all happened under the label of Christ. I’d have a little more compassion if they hadn't vowed themselves to be messengers of Christ. The very bearers of Christ’s message.

I guess in a great sense my eyes have been opened and now the true healing can begin. My great question is how do you even begin to forgive an organization specially when there is such a mix of remorse and defiance mixed together. It’s like an awful marriage where both parents stay together but have conflicting convictions.

It’s so ironic that both my family and the “umbrella parent” I grew up with carry some/many of the same characteristics. This doesn’t make me bitter, it makes me very sad. It makes me want to rise up and do it differently. It makes me want to create a better outcome, a better solution for my children, their future and the future of the church. It’s my responsibility to be a Christ bearer, a reflection of Christ.

I mourn though. I mourn for what I deserved as a child and didn’t get. I mourn for what a poor reflection Christ was given, and how people perceive Christ now because they were warped, manipulated and scarred.

But somehow in the mourning I’m thankful for the deep valleys because I would be nothing I am today without the wind, the waves and the pain driving me to God, the one that never for a second left me or let me down. There is a chance to redeem the past and use the knowledge collected to help and love others. I’ve been learning a lot about brokenness this year. We truly are ALL broken. Broken vessels in the hand of God. Those who know and believe they are broken beyond their own ability to fix themselves are in the perfect place Christ wants them to be. We are in a place of being able to see Christ as our greatest healer. It brings us to a place of being able to take the things we are learning and help others to see Christ.

Which brings us to a phrase that was music to my ears when I heard it, “Wounded Healer.” I have been broken, and I hope my heart continues to be broken before Christ for the things that are right and proper. I want Christ to use my life, my simple offering maybe to bring healing to others. It’s a humble request, born out of a heart on fire for Christ. I want to be used by God to be a Wounded Healer.