As a mom, I want all children to have access to the necessities of life, just like my own kids do.  I can’t imagine not being able to get my daughters the medication they need when strep makes it’s ugly self known, or clean cool water when they are thirsty.  Nor can I imagine life without Jesus to comfort them when the deep ugliness of this sin wrecked world brushes by, or when our own sin wrecked words sting.

Beautiful Lesbia

the Guapo Bryan

I’ve joined the “mom” team, to pray for these precious young ones, to offer words of hope and encouragement to do what is right and good in the letters that I write each month.  And that $38 a month we send for each of these children?  It does far more for each of those children and their families than it could for me if I stuck it in my pocket.

• Food and clean water
• Medical care
• Educational opportunities
• Important life-skills training
• Most important of all, your sponsored child will hear about Jesus Christ and be encouraged to develop a lifelong relationship with God.

That’s just what your money will cover.  Your prayers and letters full of words of hope and encouragement can tell the child how precious and loved she/he is.  And your act of sponsorship will tell a mom and dad, or a single mom or dad that they are not alone in their hope and fight for a life above poverty for this child.

These days I often find myself thinking, pondering things that Builder says in passing.  Having him home for several months, we get to hear great things from him.  He was recently sharing words of encouragement to our daughters that ended with something like this…

and then there are those who spend most of their lives just healing from injustices of this sinful word.

Those words stuck with me for quite awhile.  Those words really fit.  Ick.  And then, as I slowly read through Pearl Girls encountering grit, experiencing grace, these words…

…through the grace of God,  I do what I do…to live life intentionally…to make the next right choice regardless of circumstances or choices in the past.  I do what I do because my mother did not have that encouragement and her song went unsung. (my paraphrase) words of Kendra Smiley

 It has been a long road since childhood abuses were inflicted and neglect left me alone in my pain.  A road that has been filled with so much debris from the past that made moving forward a slower than slow process. 

But these new words, spoken in love, have ushered in something different.  The road looks smoother and less littered with ugly debris.  My vision is more clear to see debris and call it what it is, instead of bumping into it blindly.  What’s more, old scars don’t feel so tender, instead they are more soft and pliable.  There’s a desire and a strength to now lift my shield higher, over others, use this sword of mine, for others.

It is my desire that while I am broken by the sin of others and by the sin within, that I can show my daughters how to laugh at the days to come becuase of the love that has won me, has renewed me.  It is my newly found desire to share my story, the story of hope given to this very cracked clay vessel.  And show my daughters how to do so as well.

I’m taking the next step, intentionally making a choice, a right choice, a good choice, with gratitude and joy.  Ready to give an account for the hope which is in me!

counting with the gratitude community to #897

Bike rides in the spring

Discovering spring flowers during a walk with a dear friend, life springing from the ground as life springs from our conversation

 A day to rest and allow the pain to subside
Inhaler to keep asthma at bay, allergy meds to help me just get through the day, and night
Understanding family
Desk partially cleared

An 8 oclock appointment tomorrow morning, a next step
Mae’s understanding even with tears, when we say not yet,
 Sweet books with the youngest
While the older girls share an exciting evening with Daddy
Chocolate with almonds
More confirmation of words that I think, that God is answering my prayers for wisdom
Friendly family dogs