What are heroes? Are they just people in movies and comics who wear capes and do heroic things? Real life heroes are people who inspire us. They are people who motivate us to be more and do more. Recently I was listening to a podcast about heroes. The speaker asked the listeners to make a list of people that they admire and why they admire them. I took some time to think and pray to consider who my personal heroes are.
Change is in the air.
In Wilmington, where I live along the North Carolina coast, it finally looks like fall. The leaves on our trees are finally changing colors and beginning to drop. And it’s December! In Wilmington, which has far more pine trees than hardwoods, we don’t see the season change as dramatically as the rest of our state. But change is in the air nonetheless.
Over the summer I began to feel that change was coming in my ministry. Honestly, I haven’t wanted to write…which is both good and bad. It’s good because I often wrote from a place of brokenness and pain. Thank God, He has mostly healed my broken heart.
But not wanting to write is bad because I’m a blogger. Bloggers write.
Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.Sometimes God speaks to us when we are simply minding our own business. I was driving east on Interstate 20 in Columbia, SC last May when I began to see signs. Literally! There were multiple billboards rising like mountains above the highway, advertising going “back to school.” Some of them advertised online degrees and others advertised graduate school.
Many exit signs pointed the way to local colleges and universities.
I saw so many of them in just a few miles of travel that I began to wonder if God was speaking to me through the signs.
At one point I looked at an electronic billboard to the left of the highway, and, no joke, it changed before my eyes to a sign advertising going back to school. Talk about surreal.
Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.I was cruising through the North Carolina countryside on two lane roads that wove between cow pastures and dilapidated barns. The early morning sun was streaming through the fall leaves, and there was a touch of fog shrouding the cotton fields. I was enjoying seeing the old timey farm houses and the huge bulls that loitered near the road. I was drinking my coffee, listening to podcasts, and taking in God’s goodness. It was a glorious morning.
Until a white SUV, just like mine, pulled out in front of me.
Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.It was 2:30 pm. In an ideal world, at 2:30 pm, I’m at home, under my electric blanket, snuggling with my stuffed bunny rabbit, Jessie, and my puppy, Coco. I get up early and I go to bed late, so I take an afternoon siesta almost every day. Well, if I’m honest, every day. It’s what I do.
But on this Tuesday at 2:30 pm I was not at home. I was not warm, under the covers, cuddled up with my fluffy friends. I was at the garage. Getting my car inspected. I didn’t have to be there. I was there because I was doing what is right.
This blog post is different from any I have written before. It is fiction, an allegory, a story I saw take place in my mind as I did a Bible study and looked up the word “redemption” in the original Greek language. It means, “to be purchased from the slave market of sin, totally free, never to be sold again.” Enjoy.
The day was dark and gloomy as Jesus wandered the city streets. His heart was set on a mission but He wasn’t quite sure yet of the outcome. He was fully God but also fully man, so some things were still hidden to Him. But this He knew: the Holy Spirit was propelling Him to find something. Or someone.
He headed to the market area, and as He drew nearer, He could begin to hear the shouts. It was a place of market, a place of trade, where one exchanged one’s valuables for another person’s goods. It was a place where food, blankets, and fine linens were sold, but as Jesus drew nearer, He saw that the market was also darker and more sinister at one end. It was also a market for people. Slaves. Men and women of flesh and bone, sold into servitude for their debts and crimes.
It was then that he saw her. He could see that at one time she was young and lovely, but today she was grimy and disheveled. She was bound by the wrists and feet by heavy rope that had no hope of being untied. She probably had once struggled against her bonds, but as he looked at her, he saw that hope had long fled her heart and despair had settled in. She sat there in defeat, and all around her were shouts of condemnation.
I was taking an early morning hike through the mountains at the Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove. It was a cool summer morning and I should have been peaceful and relaxed, but instead, I was upset. And it wasn’t at my husband back in Wilmington, or my children, or my mother. I was upset because of Facebook. Rather, what I saw on Facebook. It wasn’t one of the many flaming political post that upset me, or even something that went against my beliefs. It was posts by Christians about Jesus. If you are on Facebook, and you have a few Christian friends, you have seen posts like this repeatedly:
Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.2016. How can we describe this past year? From what I’ve seen on Facebook, most people were happy to say goodbye to 2016. It was a year rife with challenges and changes. No one will miss the bitter and hateful election season and the internal struggle of how to vote. For my home state, North Carolina, we suffered the devastating Hurricane Matthew and race riots in Charlotte. Even in my church, we faced challenges and changes.
You probably faced some difficult challenges and changes in 2016 as well, perhaps in your job, your family, your finances, or your health.
Funerals always make me introspective. At my church, my pastor likes to have an “open mic” during the service for friends and family to share special memories of their loved one. I always enjoy this because it helps me to better know my friend or loved one who has passed. The stories shared make us laugh and make us cry.
At a recent funeral I attended, over and over people talked about how this gentleman would help anyone. The piano teacher shared how when he saw that her yard was unkempt, he came over and mowed her lawn. When he was on the job in downtown Wilmington, he met an elderly man and renovated his home. For free. He always took tools with him to people’s homes in case they needed him to fix something.
Serving. Giving. Caring. What a legacy.
This is a guest post that I wrote that was posted today on the Haiti Awake blog. You can read it there using this link. http://www.haitiawake.org/news/2016/11/21/dredging-up-compassion-for-the-suffering-and-desperate or, because I want to make things easier for you, you can read it below!
I’m sitting in a big comfy desk chair staring at my oversized computer screen. Looking back at me is Haitian woman and her child whose home was destroyed by Hurricane Matthew. My home consists of carpet, tastefully painted walls, and a solid roof to keep us protected. Her home is no longer a home, but a thrown together shanty made of broken sheets of iron.
I look at the rubble and trash and rocky ground around her home and I just can’t understand as my home is surrounded by a pristine carpet of St. Augustine grass. I see her shoeless feet standing on the concrete slab and I think of my recently painted purple toe nails. But then I notice in the picture her one year old son standing in the makeshift doorway of her dwelling. He’s naked. And I think, “Where is his diaper?” My western mind hasn’t connected that a shoeless, nearly homeless woman would not be able to buy diapers. Wow.
I continue to stare at her but honestly, I struggle to have compassion for her. I continue staring at the computer screen waiting for compassion to erupt from some deep place in my heart. But it doesn’t. I wait, and still, nothing. It’ difficult for me to dredge up empathy for this poor woman because I cannot relate to her situation. I cannot comprehend her desperation. I have shoes, a home, and children that are dressed head to toe.
I continue to read about this desperate mother, Moline, and her family. She has three children. She sells fish at the nearby beach. Her husband is a fisherman. And then I read a sentence that does produce a reaction in my heart:
“We could not help her and her family…”
And I am cut to the heart. Because, you see, while my heart may struggle with compassion and empathy to relate to a woman I will never know, God’s Holy Spirit lives in me. God knows this shoeless woman that I will never know. He sees her ramshakle dwelling and her diaperless child. He hears the hidden wailings of her heart that I will never hear. He cares for Moline oh so much.
And God sees me. God knows that I have the means to help this woman. He knows that recently one of my monthly bills was eliminated and I have some extra room in my budget. And God knows that when He speaks to me about this money, I will listen. Although I often resist and question, I will eventually obey. Jesus, after all, is my example. God hears the silent prayer of my heart, my surrender, “Not my will, O God, but yours be done.”
My heart is moved to action and these extra funds in my budget will now be sent every month to Haiti Awake, a ministry on the ground in Haiti that helps real families like Moline and her diaperless child. I know that my US dollars will make a sizeable different for families in Haiti. And even though I still may not understand or comprehend their plight, I will make a difference.
I will touch Haiti – not with my hands and feet – but with my heart. God’s heart.
What about you? Is God speaking to your heart to be a monthly supporter of Haiti Awake? They need monthly support they can depend on, which allows them to plan, to grow, and to follow where the Lord is leading. Whether you can share $10, $25, $50 or more, God will use it to care for the Molines and families like hers in Haiti. Please prayerfully consider giving to this ministry. You can donate online using the link below:
or to becoming a monthly supporter, contact Haiti Awake at rick@haitiawake.org.
Sharing is caring. If this post encouraged you, will you share it on Facebook so that it could bless your friends,too? Thanks for helping me to reach more struggling women with encouragement, hope, and grace.
