A look of faith...

It happened once some months ago.

I had just arrived home from 3 weeks in Kenya, and we had our son for the weekend.  I couldn't wait to go to church with my family.

But we had discovered that our son wasn't quite comfortable at church.  During my trip in Kenya I had spent some time thinking and praying about this and decided I would not force church on him.  I would invite and hope and pray.

So that weekend, he didn't want to go.  I was crushed.  I felt like a failure, and didn't know how to take it.  That Sunday morning, as I was preparing to walk out the door by myself, I cried.  My hopes and dreams for a family grounded together in Christ, connected to community and living out the Gospel... seemed hopeless.  I was afraid I would always go to church alone, and there was nothing I could do about it.

Just then, my husband lovingly stopped me, held me by my arm and looked into my eyes with his deep blue-grey, "Have faith."  All he said were these words. That and the look on in his eyes filled me with hope.  I still cried in worship, praying my heart out for the Lord to hold my family together.  But I had hope.

And how the Lord answers prayer!  I came home to find my husband and son had read scripture together, and promised each other to go on a 'journey of discovering' to learn about, as my son put it- "God and Jesus and stuff".

And since then our son has not refused church- not even once.  In fact, he has voluntarily gone off to the children's classrooms on his own!  At our last Sunday together, we could hardly pull him away from the church's "5th Sunday"- fun filled community time with food, games, and bouncy houses.  Who wouldn't love it?!


And yesterday, as my husband held me during worship, his eyes full of compassion looking deep into mine said "It will be OK."  This time I cry over my family, the pain they face.  His look of faith, filling me with hope, spurs me on to believe and trust in the One who is in control.

Its a beautiful connection, a shared trust that we have, to know and believe that our God hears and He will answer our prayers.  Each new challenge, each new daunting task or difficult reality, broken dream or fallen loved one... we share the same Truth- full of faith, hope and love.

Gifts a-counting...(~ 550 or more) 

... He surprises me with a new book
... Roses at church for moms
... Special sushi lunch
... We stay up late reading to each other
... Piggy back rides!
... Dad and son have special laugh together
... We surprise dad at the beach
... Amazing moon!
... Sharing life with best friend miles away
... We make it home safe through a storm
... He takes me shopping @ fun Galveston stores
... Invitation to friends graduation party!
... Breakfast with good friends

Congratulations, Kayla! Class of 2012

The most beautiful woman I know...

My mom is the most beautiful woman I know.

She walked with me through some of the most ridiculous things I have ever done... It seems that when I felt unstable, blowing with whatever wind there happened to be, she was steady, present, and prepared to walk me through it.

She was not phased when after meeting Travis, we were married only six months later.  She walked with me through that one too.

My mom is a rock.  No other word.  She feeds on the Rock of Ages, more steady than mountains that shift with time.

And beautiful.

My mom taught me to count my blessings.  I remember laying with her, in the king size bed under the windows, at night or in the morning listening to the doves sing out, and she would say "Always count your blessings".  And we would count together, starting with the sounds of the morning doves outside our window.  So many blessings.

My mom sees beauty in the simplest things.  She knows the kind of joy that exists regardless of circumstances, something I only recently feel I can even grasp at.

My mom loves an iced Diet Coke and a good book.

And flowers.  The kind you grow...

My mom gave me a love for creating, art and music and beautiful things.  A love for imagination.

She is probably the smartest person I know, and taught me that you can never stop learning.

She always told me I could do anything I wanted to if I put my mind to it.

She took me to the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport on my 21st birthday to catch my plane to Delhi, India.  I would be there for 9 months.  She helped me raise about $1000 with a garage sale so I could go.  We sold so much stuff that weekend, we still refer back to that when we can't find something.  "Must have sold it in that garage sale".

She didn't want me to go to India, but she loved me enough to help me get there.

Why did I spend so much of my early years wishing I could grow up faster?  I left home at 16 and went to college, living in a dorm away from my family.  I've been away ever since.  My mom would come have dinner with me every Tuesday, rain or shine.  We'd eat together in the dorm cafeteria.  I enjoyed it for the most part, but I used to get frustrated too- I wanted to eat with my friends, especially my first 'serious' boyfriend during my second year at UNT. 

I wish I could have dinner every Tuesday with my mom now.

My mom and I got to visit Washington DC together in December last year.  We discovered the national gardens and were delighted!  We got on separate planes to head our separate ways after that- me to Houston and Mom to Amarillo.  I got to see her at Christmas after that, but not since then.

I miss my mom.

Every year I learn something new and wonderful about my mom.  She is the most beautiful person I know.  I know she has always been that way, I've just grown to appreciate it more and more.  And I've come to need it more and more- that steady beauty, full of grace, love unwavering, strength at hand.

Dear Mom- I love you, you are my heart and I love you and miss you.  Thank you for everything, thank you for being there even though the many miles separate us.  I hope I can be more and more like you every day. 

Happy Mother's Day.

Haiti

I arrived home from Haiti on Friday at 2 AM.  My husband glad to see me, only ~ 24 hours since discovering that his uncle, Harry Brown of San Antonio, had passed away unexpectedly.  I spent my 5 hour layover in Miami discovering that my family had just experienced a serious falling out between two loved ones.

The whole earth groaning, broken, sad...

Seeing my best friend Becky Burton, husband Jimmy and new baby Abigail Faith was delightful.  O to see Becky so happy with her first baby!  To hear her story of how the birth went, how God was so present and faithful through everything, and how Abigail got her middle  name.  That was very good.

 

But Haiti?  Haiti is hard.

I sometimes think of the verse in Psalms where David says "I was young once and now I am old, but I have never seen the righteous forsaken, your people begging for bread".  I like to claim that as the truth, but is it true in Haiti?  Its funny, I think about the life I live here in the US, the life we provide for our son, and it feels opposite.  We don't realize the pain and suffering experienced in other parts of the world until we grow up and open our eyes to it.  My son has no idea still...

But the Lord is in Haiti, His witnesses are there and His beloved are cared for.  His promises true, His life sustaining all.

Praise God for the faithful who serve, who love, and press on in the hardness of it all.  My friends, Becky and Jimmy, serve as part of a ministry called Heartline.  They do several things: provide education and work opportunities for women, family planning and parenting education, and health care for pregnant moms and their babies, as well as a home for new teenage moms in need of support.  You can buy the beautiful purses and jewlery made by these women online: Haitian Creations.

Soon, Heartline will be breaking ground on a bakery that will provide jobs with about six men as part of an intense discipleship program. 


Heartline started out as an orphanage offering adoptions for children in need.  However, with the influx of mothers giving up their children for adoption because they felt they could not provide for their children (not that they wanted to live without them!), Heartline decided to change models.  They started a program for pregnant mothers which offers healthy meals, pre-labor education and medical care through the delivery of their baby, and parenting education.  The program is small, taking only 30 pregnant moms at a time.  They intentionally keep it this way.  The women make friends, build a support group, and the combined result of it all is that they feel loved and well equipped to bring a child into the world and care for it.  They bond with their babies, even naming them from the moment they're born (rather than waiting months or even years because who knows? The baby might die.)  They continue coming for about six months after the baby is born, but have friends and resources for life.

I had the incredible opportunity to assist in the clinics on two days, as well as a class on the stages of labor (where my friend acted out the second stage of labor and I dutifully rubbed her back!)  The skit culminated in a baby doll being pulled from under an actresses shirt who was shouting "Jesus!"  The women howled with laughter!

 

Passing the grey streets, rubble and trash, the throngs of people walking in all directions, (I wonder if they work or where they go?), pass the crowded UN tent cities still erected after the devastating earthquake of 2010, sitting with baby Abigail in my lap as my friends tell me of the random assaults and robberies of foreign missionaries that have peaked in recent months.  They take me to the airport, and I leave my precious friends behind in the broken land, bleeding and pained, groaning for grace to rebuild, restore, set right.  My heart cries out like in Isaiah 58-

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
⁷ Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
⁸ Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
    and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
    and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
⁹ Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
    you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
¹⁰ and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
¹¹ The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
¹² Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.

---