Wake up my Heart!

In the last few years I have learned to trust God. Pretty implicitly. For my own well being and for life in general. Granted, to learn this, I had to be broken. Then, I had to rise with a different sense of the word "dependent." When it comes to my son, however, I'm still not there. I start sentences with phrases with conjunctions. "I trust God, but..." It's kind of ridiculous how we like to hold on to things we think of as our own, isn't it?! Why in the world do I doubt the God of the universe when it comes to knowing what is best for my son when I can so easily, every day, turn my own life over to Him? And the answer is pretty simple. I don't want my son to get hurt. Physically, sure, but what seems to be the problem of late is an emotional heartbreak that I cannot fix. Do you know the pain of not being able to help your child process something? MAN! I've been wrestling with this because my heart seems to be healed from something that my ...

Here is something you should all know about me by now. I LOVE worship songs. I love songs. Period. But the ones that make my hands turn up to the Lord are my favorite. This Advent season, I've got a new one! Parents: if you do not have your children listen to Slugs and Bugs; please change that. They have fun/crazy/silly songs and 4 straight up - sing the bible - CDs. I am a new owner of their Family Christmas CD and I have had one song on repeat for 2 days. Ready for the lyrics? They are simple: Galatians 4:4-7 (here's a link to song snippets from the CD - you want song number two for a one minute clip which will leave you wanting more! https://slugsandbugs.com/products/sing-the-bible-family-christmas ) When the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, Born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons and because you are sons... God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ...

My son has this new saying. “Mom do you know what I do? I DO love you!” I love it. It so very accurately portrays love as an action verb. Which I have come to realize, it is. I also work for an organization where the motto really is “Love is a verb”, further defined in a way I think we are meant to compare to the fruits of the Spirit: Patient, humble, respectful, honest, kind, selfless, forgiving, committed. This means it is my job to love people. Can I tell you how wonderful it is to go to work and pray that during my shift I can best show love to the people I am serving?! On my drive, I make a choice. To love when it’s hard. And for the first time I really get Paul’s message in Corinthians. It is not that love is patient or kind. It is that when you DO love; patience IS the love. Kindness is the love. When you forget the wrongs, you are DOING the love. It's hard to put it into words, but there is a difference in loving passively and DOING love. Love is a ver...

This past week, I was in Illinois, quite unexpectedly and had the joy of attending the annual GOYA Ministries benefit. This ministry is near and dear to my heart and my past life and my present life are all crazily intermingled in it. The theme was "what if" and although obviously this was all in reference to how GOYA ministries has helped so many and how it will continue to do so, a couple of those what if comments have been with me, rambling as my thoughts so often do, since Tuesday! In 2011, tragedy hit Mitumba, a slum in Kenya. And here's the take away they presented: what if what the enemy meant for destruction, we could rebuild for hope? What if we have to be broken to be made better? Friends, I don't know what it's like to lose EVERYTHING. In my own life, here as a privileged white person in America, I cannot even begin to comprehend how destroyed and broken Mitumba (and it's people) were in 2011. But I know how broken and destroyed I was from S...