tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26958405119708832202023-11-24T23:14:47.580-08:00on earth as it is in heavenkatiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-2039121317490738682015-11-04T01:17:00.000-08:002015-11-04T01:17:26.764-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
This year has been different.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For months before marriage God spoke to my heart of new
things, prepared my soul to cling to His promise, “Behold, I am doing a new
thing.” This seemed obvious. Of course, marriage was new, learning to share
leadership in our home was new, having someone to share <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything</i> with was new – and so wonderful! – nearly everything
felt new. What I did not perceive all the months of these whispers was that God
was also speaking of something much deeper, much more subtle, much less
obvious. Apart from anyone’s eyes, deep in my insides, God was going a new
thing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in me.</i> In the depths of my
heart, in a hidden place that the outside world could not see or understand, My
loving Father was tenderly peeling back the layers, revealing to me my very
truest, deep-seated beliefs about Him and carefully chiseling them away to
replace them with truth.<o:p></o:p></div>
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For the first time in years, opposition in our lives was not
coming from outside, but from within these walls. No one was deathly ill on our
doorstep. Ministry seemed to run fairly smoothly. The presence of friends was
true and constant. And in this season of calm, within our home, deep wounds
were on display – mine and theirs. Old woundedness, occurring long before God
knit us together as a family, began to surface and just kept surfacing in this
season of new. The newest thing of this season was the work God was doing
invisibly, in our hearts.<o:p></o:p></div>
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And in the midst of it all, of trying to hold all the wounds
and pour out love, of trying to understand things incomprehensible to me and see
our children through God’s eyes, he pulled up my very own heart-flaws, most
blatantly this questioning, a wondering if <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">really,
this time,</i> He would be faithful. I, who have tied my whole life up in
proclaiming His faithfulness to others, believing in healing for others,
declaring His goodness to others, wondered if really He would still be faithful
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to me.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
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I have personally known His faithfulness time and time
again. God has kept His promises, throughout all of my life and throughout all
of history. I have tasted of His goodness; I have lived in it. And somehow in a
season of things so different and so new, and so seemingly unending, I wondered
if this time He would come through?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remembered His promise, spoken for months. But this new
thing, it was not only beautiful, it was difficult. What new thing was He
really speaking of? Couldn’t I see it? And so I sat in my wondering and my
waiting and my pleading, and God spoke to me the same words again and again, “I
am not done yet.” And I fought to believe it. But this was my way through the
sea, my stream in the wasteland, my lifeline. When in my heart I felt that I
might be truly done, He was still at work in the hearts of my people, and He
was not done yet.<o:p></o:p></div>
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He was not done with me.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This year was different. Outwardly, almost nothing
progressed. Almost nothing was measurably accomplished that an onlooker would
notice or recognize. But inwardly, He was doing a new thing – in us. God was
not finished with me, He was not done with the wounds in the hearts of our
children, He was working, patiently and quietly, and sometimes even invisibly
to chisel away at the hardened parts of each of us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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In the quiet, in the waiting, in the asking and believing
and sometimes even faltering, He was our stream in the desert. His strength
became our strength when being strong seemed a thing of the past. His love
endured when I wondered if mine would give out. His faithfulness endured
through the waiting, through the changes, through the challenge.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“Behold, I am doing a new thing. Now it springs up! Can you
not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness, and streams in the
wasteland <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">to give drink to my chosen people, the people I formed for myself that
they may proclaim my praise.”</i></b><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the last weeks, we have seen immeasurable growth, joy and
heart change in our children that does not compare to anything we have
experienced before as a family. The Spirit’s work is evident and I feel the
Lord’s hand heavy on our home. Of course in reality, it has been all along.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
His words ring true in my ears and in my heart, these words
He has spoken over me long in preparation. I look at our people, our home, that
He has so faithfully and so constantly poured into and He opens my eyes, I
perceive it. He has done a new thing <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">in
us</i> and He is not finished.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And He gives us to drink that we may proclaim His praise.
Halleluiah! His love endures. He is at work in us!<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I don’t know your desert place, the place that seems like a
wasteland where God is clearly finished working or has moved on. I don’t know
your places of questioning, “Will you really come through <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">this time?” </i>But I know that His promise to me could very well be
His promise to you. “Behold, I am doing a new thing,” and surely, beloved, even
when we cannot see or perceive it He is not done. He is making a way in your
wilderness and a stream in the wasteland because <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">you</b> are His chosen, who He formed for Himself to the glory and
praise of His name!<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Chin up, love. In the waiting, in the quiet, He could chisel
away at those old wounds and you might just see that the new thing He is forming
is you.<o:p></o:p></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com46tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-67540964845996390552015-05-09T11:04:00.002-07:002015-05-10T07:57:28.917-07:00To the mom who doesn't feel like a mother, yet (and the other moms too!)<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It seems to be the lament of many adoptive mothers I meet,
“I didn’t really <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">feel</i> it.” Somewhere
along the line, adoption has become associated with the myth of “love at first
sight.” I surely cannot say that no one feels this, but I can say that not
everyone does, and not everyone has to. Because the truth is, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love is a thing that grows.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I am sure there is truth in the stories that many tell of
that moment they saw their child for the first time and knew instantly that God
had ordained him to be theirs and fell in love. But I think so much more often,
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">the action of love precedes the actual
feeling.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I knew many of my
children months or years before I became their mother. When I first met them, I
had no idea that this would be a bond we would share. Even when they first
moved in and we filled out the foster care papers, I was tentative. I didn’t
really feel like a mother, I felt like a stopgap in the system, a temporary
solution. Even as we took steps to make their adoptions more permanent, after
God had made it clear that we would be a forever family, I fumbled, often
feeling more like a babysitter, or on good days, a fun aunt.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">Parents who are still feeling this way, be encouraged: you
didn’t miss the miracle. The love at first sight moment isn’t really what it is
all about, and might not happen for all of us. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Some days, love isn’t a feeling, it is a choice.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">You may be the momma who opens her arms wide to the baby
you’ve seen in photos who now clings tightly to the orphanage worker and cries
in fear. You might be the mother sitting in your hotel room oceans away from
your home watching her little chest move up and down while she sleeps, and
feeling just devastated by how much of her you do not know. You might be the
mother starting at the teenager who, years later, still refuses to be loved,
who pushes you away just to see when, if, you will ever leave. And I just
wanted to tell you, it is ok. You didn’t miss it. You didn’t miss His call and
you didn’t miss the miracle. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love is a
thing that grows.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">From the moment I met my children I loved them in the
way that a heart feels they must love another human being, especially one in
need of care. I felt that God made it clear to me that I was to raise them
and this intensified my love into a fierce, protective, sacrificial love, but
it didn't change the fact that it takes some time to make strangers into
family. That part is a daily choice. From the day I signed those papers I knew
they were mine; I was choosing to be their parent. But just like the choice I
had made to adopt a child, I would also have to choose to love them. I would
choose to love them each morning and each evening and sometimes many times in
between. This often felt like failure. If God was giving me children, why
didn’t parenting come a little more naturally? Wasn’t deep, connected,
instantaneous love a miraculous gift? In my experience, it was more of a choice
than a feeling. It was a process that took growth and the daily choice to love
and pour into the small person in front of me, even on days when I felt like
more of a babysitter than a mom.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I wish I could tell my young, striving mother heart a thing
or two. If I could, I would bring her weary frame a cup of coffee and reach out
across the years to hold her hand a whisper to her all of the things that I did
not know.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">I didn’t know that, one day, love for them would consume me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">In those early days of laying sleepy heads on pillows and training
tiny hearts to know Jesus, I had no comprehension of the wild, devastating,
uncontainable love I would feel for them. I didn’t know that they would some
how be these little extensions of me, that when they hurt I would hurt more
deeply than I ever had before and that when they showed delight over a success
or an excitement for God’s Word my heart would swell within me and I would be
unable to contain tears of joy. I didn’t know that sometimes I would look at
them and just love them so much that my heart would physically ache within my
chest.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I didn’t know that I would blink and they would be grown up, and I
would feel like their little lives were slipping through my fingers and I would
want to just soak them up, pause the time and savor the moments; that I had
this unspoken expectation in my mind that they would grow up and stay little
all at the same time. That no matter what I would never feel that I had done
well enough, loved hard enough, or taught them enough, but that wouldn’t keep
me from pouring out every ounce of myself anyway.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I didn’t know that I would see the sparkle of my eyes in theirs and
hear the lilt of my voice when they spoke, or that I would smell the same scent
of my skin when I kissed their foreheads or that over the years their laughs
and their mannerisms would become more and more like mine. I didn’t foresee
that I would sneak into their rooms late at night just to watch their chests
rise and fall and study the way their little fingers curled around the edge of
their blankets and that no matter how “big” they got I would still have the
curves of even their fingertips etched in my mind.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">I didn’t know the rejoicing I would feel as I watched them serve others,
when I saw them devouring scripture, praying, or longing for more of God. And I
sure didn’t know the inadequacy I would feel as I realized more and more that I
was shaping them, helping God make them into the people that He intended them
to be.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">And at the end of the day I had no idea just how powerful and humbling
it would be to acknowledge that it would only be God who could change them,
redeem them, and save them, not me. Only He could work in their hearts and know
their futures. Only He would had been with them all the days of their lives and
would remain with them each day and receive all the glory.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">If I could reach back in time and whisper to her, I would tell her <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">that I didn’t know Jesus the way I do now,
before I became a mother, and that alone makes it all worth it.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">It is not lost on me, the miracle of all that has taken place here to
allow me to feel all of these things. I look at these young ladies and so much
of it seems like a blur. I can’t exactly pin-point all of the ah-ha moments,
but somewhere along the lines, it happened. The daily choice became a habit and
the habit became a lifestyle and we became a family.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">Somewhere in all the laundry and homework help and consistent discipline and constant, tireless love, it happened that I looked at my child
and saw in her such a piece of me and He confirmed with real life what He had
spoken to my heart many years before – she is mine. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">The youngest stands with her toes pointed out and her hands on her
hips and I might as well be looking at a mirror. The oldest smiles gently and
speaks truth and reminds me exactly of my mother as if it could somehow be
genetic. And when that one smiles all her bottom teeth show, too, and she is
confident in Jesus and wants big things from life just like a teenager I once
new. And this one loves justice and learning how to cook new things while
another shows patience in caring for younger children something I loved just as
much at her age.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">And for us, this is the miracle: not that we experienced love at first
sight but that God has given me a love for these once-strangers that is just as
strong as if they had grown in my own womb. That somewhere along the line after
weeks or months or years of choosing this kind of love, I suddenly found myself
in the place that I am now where I have no choice, where I could not stop
loving that if I tried because they are part of me. The miracle is that God has
given me His eyes for them and in my moments of saying “she is mine” He has
given me a glimpse of His heart for me.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">So to all the moms out there who are cradling their little ones, or
even their big ones, and wondering when you will stop feeling like a surrogate;
</span>to the mothers who are clumsily jostling their newborn for the first
time and to those who are staring out over the expansive distance that has
grown between themselves and that hard-to-parent teenager; your Heavenly Father
sees you. And He is glorified by your trying, your pursuing, your loving. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Love is a choice, and as we choose it, it
grows. We keep choosing love and He keeps choosing us, and this, my friend, is
the miracle.</i><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large; mso-ascii-font-family: Cambria; mso-hansi-font-family: Cambria;">My hope is that you will cherish God’s welcome invitation to know Him
increasingly in answering the high calling that is motherhood. No matter how He
has enabled you to be a mom, in marriage, in singleness, through foster care,
through childbirth, as a mother of one, as a mother of many, keep being
faithful to Him as you parent your children. He’s shaping them through you and
He is shaping you through them.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;">And to all the mothers who have given their foster children
to forever families but still have that child-shaped hole in their heart, to the mothers now called “birth mom” who have given their child into a better
life out of love, to the mothers whose babies now rest in the arms of Jesus; thank you. You are brave, you are beautiful, and this day is for you, too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: large;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><span style="font-size: large;">Happy Mother’s Day to us!<o:p></o:p></span></span></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com45tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-3644732708622306802015-04-16T02:42:00.001-07:002015-04-16T02:42:55.811-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
He looked into their eyes, both of them. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He shouldn’t have even been talking with the woman at the
well because of her race. The woman with the issue of blood shouldn’t have even
been near Him because of her uncleanliness. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I
shouldn’t even be allowed to approach Holy God because of my sin.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">But Jesus. </i>He
looked into their eyes. He stopped what He was doing, stopped in the hustle and
bustle of the day. And His gentle voice held their hearts as He spoke,
“Daughter.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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We are just like them.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am the Samaritan woman hiding from my sin in the heat of
the day. My secrets take different forms than 5 former husbands, but I hide
them just the same, down deep so that people won’t see. I wonder why He is even
speaking to me, so ordinary. Doesn’t He know my faults? He does. And His desire
is to heal, to comfort, to uplift. His desire is that I would know the lines
under his eyes and the beads of sweat on his forehead and the lilt of his voice
just as intimately as she did. My sin leaves me thirsty and I long for living
water. I yearn for it and He gives it freely.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I am the woman with the issue of blood – persistent sickness
in need of a Healer. Except I am a woman with the issue of sin instead, in need
of a Savior to wash me clean. I am chasing after Him, reaching toward Him, longing
just to touch the hem of His robe. And He is not far off. He turns toward me
the way He turned toward her, kneels down, cups my chin in His hand.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>“Daughter,”</i> He says.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i>Can you hear Him?</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And His words to us are the same as they were to those two.
“You faith has made you well. Go in peace.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He has made us well! Hallelujah! He has made us well and He
has given us peace.<o:p></o:p></div>
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We are healed from our depravity, our iniquity, our wickedness.
We are given peace from our struggling, our striving, our hurt. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">He loves us like that.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The sick woman chases after Jesus, after twelve years of no
answers. It doesn’t matter what the world says, if they say she is dirty and
hopeless. She chases after Him because she believes that He has what she needs,
that He can heal her. And He does. She squeezes through the crowd, reaches for
His hem, because she knows He is the Savior. And He is.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The woman at the well, she runs into the town to tell
anyone, everyone what He has done for her. This man knows everything she has
ever done and yet still He loves her and desires to set her free. They believe
because of her testimony, they race to see for themselves, to hear and see and
touch, and they too are saved.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
We have received this same grace. So might we spend our
whole lives like these women – broken, thirsty and in need of Him. Reaching out
for Him, no matter the circumstance. Fearlessly hoping in Him regardless of
what the world might say about our situation or the extent of our brokenness.
Bearing our hearts to Him, no matter the shame of our sin. Running toward Him,
no mater the distance. Boldly proclaiming to all the world, “Come and listen!
Come and see what He has done for us. He has made us well! He has given us peace!” <i>He loves us like that.</i><o:p></o:p></div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com36tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-53183775224546633382015-03-10T04:41:00.002-07:002015-03-10T04:41:33.982-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
It is rainy season again. My friend and I slip and slide down the muddy hill
to Masese where we weekly study the word with a group of women who have become
so dear to us. Every Tuesday we come, joyful and overflowing, or broken and
weary, or anything in between and we don’t have to hide it because these women
have become friends. We wear our babies on our hips and we wear each others’
burdens. We break bread together in each others homes and each week we crack
open His word desperate for His filling, searching for His wisdom, inquiring
together, “What do you have for us, God.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is beautiful, when I have eyes to see. It is beautiful,
but my heart isn’t prepared for Masese today.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We sit in a circle in the dirt space between falling-apart
slum buildings and I scuff the dirt under my sandals and let my mind wander as
the women share prayer requests, each of them more devastating than the last. Last
week, just two days after I held her baby in this very circle, our friend was
poisoned and quickly died. We shake our heads in disbelief and we try to
remember the good things she brought to this community without losing hope. But
as we continue to share, someone else’s mom is slowly dying of tuberculosis and
some else’s daughter was assaulted and far too many people that everyone knows
have fallen prey to alcoholism and addiction and we see the way this so quickly
destroys the lives around us. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And how do
we not lose hope, </i>I wonder. I let my mind wander because I am weary. I
don’t want to engage in this kind of suffering again today. I live just a few
minutes away from here but my life is still so different. My hard looks like
teenagers with rolling eyes and fragile hearts that are crushed with a few
wrong words or glances. Their hard is rampant disease and rape and murder. I
haven’t spent enough time with Jesus and today I just can’t seem to open my
heart to that kind of hurt without despair.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I force myself to get down in the dirt and lay my hands on a
sick friend and pray. My hand is wet and I realize that she is letting her
tears fall, vulnerable, in front of me, in front of our Father. Her hurt is
different than mine, but really, it is the same. We are the same. Both just as
in need of a Savior as the other. Both willing Him, begging Him to come
quickly. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I ask Him to open my heart to
right here and right now. I ask Him to make Himself known.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We sit in the dirt and let the tears fall. And despite my
best efforts to harden myself to the suffering today, Faithful God breaks me,
gives me eyes not just to see the pain but to know it intimately. These aren’t
just people. These are my friends. These are people I know, people He knows. I
know their names, their husbands, their children. He knows each hair on their
heads and the deepest cries of our heart.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I allow myself to imagine us in the palm of His hand. I
imagine his tenderness as He numbered those hairs, I imagine His hand cupping
my face as a Daddy cups the face of His daughter, and I imagine Him looking
into these women’s eyes and smiling, delighted in His daughters. I close my
eyes and in my mind I hear the voice of my husband as he sits on our bed and
strums his guitar, “for mercy for comfort we wait on the Lord,” He sings.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I feel like we are just waiting. Today, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hope is something we fight for.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
A woman I don’t know very well walks by our circle. I have
heard stories of her. She sits on the ground against the wall of the little
dirt church we meet behind and stares vacantly. Nobody is really sure if she is
disabled or if she has just been abused by so many men that she doesn’t talk
anymore.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Another woman who I
know well and love dearly stumbles down the hill and nuzzles her head into my
shoulder. She lived with us years ago as she recovered from alcoholism and her
child recovered from resulting burns, but it is clear how drunk she is as she
tries to communicate with me through language barriers and slurred speech. My
eyes look into hers, blood-shot red, and I plead with her. She is such a good
mother, sober. I ask where her little girl is, trying to remind her that being
home alone is how she got so injured last time but she isn’t listening. She
kisses my cheeks and stumbles away.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is just days after they lowered our friend’s body into
the ground because she was brutally, intentionally killed. Just a week ago she
sat in this circle with us and now her body rots in the ground while we try to
figure out who will check on her babies. The women look defeated. I feel
defeated.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
How do we find the hope of Jesus here? How do we proclaim
that He is at work when we just can’t see it?<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">“Let us see you here,
Lord,”</i> I pray it desperately.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>He
answers with Romans 2:8, “To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory,
honor and immortality, He will give eternal life.” These women, they persist.
Against all the odds, when it would be easier to just give up and go ahead and
call this place hopeless, they cling to their hope in Jesus and the persist in
doing good, they persist in seeking His glory.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I trudge back up the hill with my mind full of questions.
God where are you in this mess? Where are you? As I ponder, my foot slips and
lands in a mixture that is surely part alcohol and part human waste. I choose
to call it mud and begin to sigh, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of
course.</i> Two strong arms wrap around me from behind and Santina’s laughter
fills my ears. She is laughing at me because she knows how distracted I was and
of course, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">of course</i> I stepped in the
hole. She pulls my arm and drags me to her home where she pulls off my shoes
and scrubs them in a basin of soapy water. Water isn’t an easy thing to come by
around here and I can’t believe she is using it on my sandals. She proceeds to
wash my feet. She is washing my feet and I want to protest but I think of
Jesus. Bent down, towel around His waist, arguing with Peter who just doesn’t
understand. He whispers to me, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">See? Do
you see Me? </i>I am at work here.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My stubborn heart may not always want to believe it but I
know that it is true. He is at work here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Margaret walks up the hill in front of me still giggling
about my feet and my grumpy-ness. Margaret, who I thought would die. Margaret
who at 19 years old held her 4 year old and her dead baby and bled and bled all
alone in her house with no one to help her and no one to call family. Margaret
who moved in just as frail and sick as Katherine or Betty. Margaret who slept
on an extra mattress in my room for weeks because I was so afraid of death that
the couch seemed too far away. Margaret who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">lived</i>.
She walks up the hill her arms full of necklaces that now provide for her and
her little guy, both happy and healthy back at home in this community, and her
heart full of God’s Word which she loves to share with others. “I am at work
here,” He whispers, again and again. “Can you believe me? Can you believe my
promises?”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course I do. I read the words of 1 Peter <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">now that you have tasted that the Lord is
good. </i>I cannot deny that I have tasted of His goodness. I cannot deny that
I have seen and known Him working all things for the good of those who love
Him, even the ugly, hard, unspeakable things.<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For mercy, for comfort, we wait on the Lord. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And He is at work here</i>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What is too hard today, friends? What is too messy? It is
hard to believe sometimes but we can <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
that God is good in that place. We’ve tasted and known His goodness, even in
the impossibly hard places. Romans 2 says, “To those who by persistence in
doing good seek glory honor and immortality, He will give eternal life.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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Persist in doing good, dear one. Persist in resting in and
relying on Him. Peace that passes understanding is promised us, and eternal life
awaits us!<o:p></o:p></div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com111tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-4899377794997118012015-02-10T08:54:00.000-08:002015-02-10T08:54:05.391-08:00<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>For years,
I have prayed Isaiah 61 over my family, asking the Lord to give beauty for
ashes, asking Him to indeed grow these daughters of mine into oaks of
righteousness, a planting for the display of His splendor. I have cried tears
straight into the words “freedom for captives” as I begged this promise for a
certain few of my little ladies specifically. I have rested in the promise of
the oil of joy instead of mourning and I have rejoiced with the prophet Isaiah
as each one has come to her own understanding that He has clothed her with
garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness. My eyes stuck right there on
Isaiah 61 praying in hope those words of verse 11, that the Lord would cause
righteousness and praise to spring up before all nations.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Only on
Saturday morning, the morning after I married the very most Christ-like man I
have ever met, did my eyes wander down past verse 11, down the page to Isaiah,
Chapter 62. As if, now that I was beginning this new chapter of life, maybe God
would give me a new chapter to pray over my family. My breath caught in my
throat as I read these words that I somehow had never read before.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“The
nations will see your vindication, and all kings your glory. You will be called
by a <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">new name</i> that the mouth of the
Lord will bestow. You will be a crown of splendor in the Lord’s hand, a royal
diadem in the hand of your God. No longer will they call you Deserted, or your
name Desolate. But you will be called Hephzibah (my delight is in her) and your
land will be Beulah (married). For the Lord will take delight in you and your
land will be married. As a young man marries a young woman, so will your
Builder marry you; as a bridegroom rejoices over his bride, so will your God
rejoice over you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Right there
on the thin, gilded page, was his heart for me, for Benji, for each of my
girls, for our family – that we would know His delight in us, the way He
rejoices over us.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The last
two years have been a different season. A season of quiet, of dark and sadness,
of joys that felt too personal to share with anyone other than my Heavenly
Father. I have tried to write many times, but I have been learning the beauty
of the secret place, just Him and me. The Lord who knows my heart has been
whispering to me of a new season for a long time, and my flesh has worried that
this new season might take me out of my secret hiding place with Him, that
somehow a physical, tangible relationship with another might take away from my
relationship with my Builder, My Lover, My Life-Giver.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Little did
I know that this new relationship would only enhance the other.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I became
Mrs. Majors on January 2<sup>nd</sup> of this year. Benji is a discipler of men
and a faithful maker of breakfast. Long before we shared a home we shared a
hometown with only a few hilltops to keep our adolescent lives from ever
intersecting. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As the Lord would have it,
we would only meet on the other side of an ocean after He had captured our
hearts with a love for the Ugandan people and a desire for The Word to go forth
in this place. At first I was hesitant, but while Benji was patient, God was
faithfully working on my heart. I watched him teach Bible studies and disciple
men and fix my kids’ bikes. We laughed over coffee and all the crazy things
that are life here. He taught me more and more about the love of Jesus, in his
words, and in his example. He captured my heart. And on the night he washed my
feet and asked me to be his forever, the yes jumped off my lips as if it had
always been waiting there just for him.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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I imagined marriage would be good.
Wonderful even. But I did not even begin to understand that it would be this
holy. I didn’t know that I would melt under this man’s gaze that is so full of
the love of the Father for me. I didn’t imagine the way his delight in me would
be my daily reminder of the way my Father delights in me. My husband’s love is
just another way God has chosen to pour our His extravagant love on me, another
constant reminder that He rejoices over me, and over each one of our daughters.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>I watch
them come alive under the loving gaze of their new father, I hear the delight
and the certainty in their voices as they call “Dad.” And without me even
having to ask, God who knows my heart has given me my new prayer over them:
that in knowing the delight of their earthly father, they would begin to grasp
the delight of their Heavenly Father all the more. That they would be a crown
of splendor in His hand, that they would embrace this new name: “my delight is
in her.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
God gives good gifts. His delight is in me, in us, in them.
May our delight be evermore in Him.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFMNxAcoj0sYCT4B5ATeUG-I6sDTpR_FJTmqLrThhAs3tb3aWszm0aCHxriLv4DHOJGNLRW-938d4Thb_aXootDciZLqBU3KjgV26ZhDrNMju71DhwfZzZjATYiY3ScbZZ39Dy6F006WY/s1600/wedding+1.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhOFMNxAcoj0sYCT4B5ATeUG-I6sDTpR_FJTmqLrThhAs3tb3aWszm0aCHxriLv4DHOJGNLRW-938d4Thb_aXootDciZLqBU3KjgV26ZhDrNMju71DhwfZzZjATYiY3ScbZZ39Dy6F006WY/s1600/wedding+1.jpeg" height="425" width="640" /></a></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com349tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-87695180729317627282014-09-30T07:43:00.000-07:002014-09-30T07:43:05.869-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
I have a friend named <a href="https://amazima.org/blog/simon-update-hes-going-home" target="_blank">Simon</a>.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He’s eleven.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Mo-tvhQehNZiTrZA2B0kWqdiAM54GwDriUaXsJIN9QdcMo4y20oEnvg2Efv8X6ojrOejCLbFT3o0ECl0lnMyNtXObs4vCpSTg51ubDMnLXakxuBCnsjcZOMATjV-vBTRLHDjYyd_ANxk/s1600/IMG_0805.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj9Mo-tvhQehNZiTrZA2B0kWqdiAM54GwDriUaXsJIN9QdcMo4y20oEnvg2Efv8X6ojrOejCLbFT3o0ECl0lnMyNtXObs4vCpSTg51ubDMnLXakxuBCnsjcZOMATjV-vBTRLHDjYyd_ANxk/s1600/IMG_0805.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the day his family arrived here for the first
time, Simon struggling to breathe and weak from the anesthesia of his first
esophageal surgery. I remember the fear in his mother’s eyes as she left him
here with his grandmother and me for middle of the night feedings through his
new feeding tube and daily tracheotomy changes. They needed a place to stay
that was near the hospital, just in case.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember when his surgeon first showed me all of his scans
and my staff and I realized that we were looking at a miracle – a real, true
miracle. How does a child live for ten years with out any ability to swallow
food? I remember the certainty I felt that God wouldn’t have brought him this
far unless He had an unbelievable plan.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember all the times I bumped into his grandmother
coming out of her room to prepare food in the middle of the night as I got up
to check on <a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2013_04_01_archive.html" target="_blank">Betty</a>. We nursed our patients and we swore when the power went out
and we couldn’t use the blender to puree his food, and sometimes we just stared
at each other through too-sleepy eyes. We whispered of God’s grace and we
whispered of our sorrows. We reminded each other of the call to of God to
longsuffering. I remember the way they held me when they learned that Betty had
gone home to Jesus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember all the things that went wrong. The moments of
panic and the consistent, pleading prayers over Simon’s young, fragile life.
His mom came to live with us when it got to be too much for his grandmother. We
both learned to do things that we never imagined we could. We watched and
prayed through eleven failed surgeries. Eleven. I remember the weight of our
exhaustion that just settled down over my home and my heart. Would he <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">ever</i> get well? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Ever?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the day I realized with full clarity that Simon
just Couldn’t get better in Uganda. We had the best surgeons and equipment our
country could offer and it just wasn’t working. I remember his squeal as he
took off on his very first airplane and his mother’s wide eyes as we entered
the Atlanta airport over 30 hours later.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the great delight I knew in watching my
biological family welcome in members of our Ugandan family and the love that
Simon and Anna felt everywhere we went. I remember how surreal it was to be
back here in Uganda and know that they were safe and sound at the homes of my
parents and closest friends in Nashville.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I remember the email that said that Simon’s surgeries were
over and had been successful. Attached were confirmation numbers of his plane
ticket home. I remember the elated, disbelieving faces of our dedicated staff
when I shared the news. I remember my children counting down the days until
they got here – our friends, now family members. And I remember her tears of
gratitude on my shoulder as we embraced for the first time in months back where
it all started, “God saved my son’s life.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is 20 months later. It feels like eternity. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And today they drove away smiling and laughing, arms excitedly
waving out of van windows, as my children chased and waved just as hard. I
stood in the driveway and let tears of joy well up in my eyes. They are well. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They are well. </i>Simon can swallow food
just as well as any other eleven year old. He can play soccer with the best of
them. Tomorrow, he’ll go back to third grade. Anna will be able to go back to
work after completely surrendering all her dreams to take care of her son. They
will wash dishes and do homework and laugh and sing and pray in their own
little home just like so many other happy, healthy families. And we will stay
here and do the same.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I stood in their room long after they left and ran my
fingers of the words of Hebrews that I painted on the wall, mostly as a
reminder to myself, “He who promised is faithful.” I can hardly believe His
faithfulness to us, the fullness of all His promises unfolding right here
before my eyes. I breathe deep relief. I allow myself to remember just how
crazy <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">hard</i> it all was, just how long
it has been, just how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">tired </i>I have
felt, and just how <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">faithful</i> he has
been to each of us through all of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
People ask me how we do it – all these people living, and
sometimes dying, in our home. Most days I shake me head, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I don’t know</i>. Lots of days it’s just down right hard. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Some days it is more than exhausting. But
today I remember. We hold out for the happy ending. Because where Jesus is, the
happy ending <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>possible. It doesn’t
always come, and that doesn’t mean He is not present, but still, it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">is </i>possible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Redemption is coming. And we don’t always get
to glimpse His redemption here and now, but sometimes we do. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today I remember. There isn’t always a happy ending… but
sometimes, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">there is.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0U_GChxOFd-X3ZPLohDBG0KyKlwjoLQhwGBaEK3ds1x46XRMhxmx8RunEZZqTKjKB0Kux-F7vl7rnqKbBxSJKJdkNhMAcVTs3MXVQ98QEJwZXpvwLQQ56qFz2DtWoHx72Hp8x2b-UprJO/s1600/IMG_2525.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0U_GChxOFd-X3ZPLohDBG0KyKlwjoLQhwGBaEK3ds1x46XRMhxmx8RunEZZqTKjKB0Kux-F7vl7rnqKbBxSJKJdkNhMAcVTs3MXVQ98QEJwZXpvwLQQ56qFz2DtWoHx72Hp8x2b-UprJO/s1600/IMG_2525.JPG" height="173" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
And He who promised is faithful.<o:p></o:p></div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com75tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-62388922953387728382014-04-19T14:01:00.002-07:002014-04-19T14:01:58.656-07:00<div class="MsoNormal">
After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week,
Mary Magdelene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord
came down from Heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled away the stone and sat on it.
His appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow. The
guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know
that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; He has
risen, just as He said. Come and see the place where He lay. Then go quickly
and tell His disciples: He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you
into Galilee. There you will see Him. Now I have told you.”<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the women hurried away, terrified yet full of joy, and
ran to tell His disciples. Suddenly, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Jesus
met them. </i>“Greetings,” He said. They came and clasped His feet and
worshiped Him. Then Jesus said, “Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to
go to Galilee; there they will see me.”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Terrified and full of joy. This isn’t the first time I have
been here, have felt this strange mix of emotion that is both trepidation and
wonder, hesitation and excitement. Fittingly, I seem to find myself here most
often during the season of Easter. This isn’t the first time this story has
spoken deeply to my heart, stating exactly what I do not have words for.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our family is extraordinarily blessed to have a small, three-bedroom
“house” in our backyard. Over the years we have been very privileged to have
people of many kinds live with us here as they recover from set-backs and move
toward what God has for them next. Sick people who have been discharged from
the local hospital but still have no place to rest, homeless families looking
for jobs or a means of support, <a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2011/07/i-thought-that-if-she-was-just-going-to.html" target="_blank">friends, who have quickly become like family</a>,
all of them looking for Jesus, looking for love. People have been loved to new
life here, and some have been loved straight into the arms of Jesus.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the quiet of the evening, after I have kissed cheeks and
tucked in bodies and prayed over sleepy little heads, I sneak out to the back
yard and I watch the new life. Anna reads to her son, <a href="http://blog.amazima.org/2013/06/prayer-request-surgery-for-simon.html" target="_blank">Simon</a>, as they wait for
the 8<sup>th</sup> in a series of surgeries to repair his esophagus. They stay
here so that they can be close to a hospital in case of an emergency, but Anna
helps me and encourages me more than she knows. Yusufu, recently homeless in
the community of Masese due to illness that caused him to lose his job, serves
food to his two young children, Mariam and Shafik. In the morning, he will go
again to dig in the garden and save up the money he makes so that they can move
out and stand on their own two feet. Agnes, partially paralyzed due to a stroke
and left to die by family members who were afraid and did not understand her
condition, sleeps soundly next to her three year old, Lotuke, tired from a long
day of walking practice. I bet she’ll be able to do it without her cane any day
now! Margaret, her tiny, twenty year-old body ravished by AIDS, discharged from
the hospital but with nowhere to go, smiles brightly at me with her son, Sam in
her lap.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Beauty from ashes. I don’t just know it to be true, I get to
live it. We get to watch redemption take place, we get to reach out and touch
it, we get to be a part of it.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And then Margaret groans that her stomach hurts. In a
moment, I am in a different place at a different time <a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2012/12/so-these-are-your-treatment-options_13.html" target="_blank">with another friend</a> whose
stomach had hurt. We are at the hospital and they are telling us that there is
nothing they can do. I slowly watch her get worse and worse. I hold her hand
and I read the Psalms, <a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2013/02/cant-believethat-it-has-been-over-month.html" target="_blank">and she breathes her last</a>. I can hardly breathe. I reach
out to hold Margaret’s hand and it looks so similar to <a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2013/04/she-reaches-for-my-hand-and-smiles.html" target="_blank">a hand I held not toolong ago</a> – a hand I held for hours that turned into days and days that turned
into weeks until finally I got to place her hand in the hands of Jesus as He
took her from this earth. I blink. It is just a stomachache. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://katiedavis.amazima.org/2012/02/healer-god.html" target="_blank">Makerere</a> walks by and I catch a glimpse of the scar on his
leg, a scar that God used to heal my heart. I breathe long and deep all that
God is doing in this place, all that He is allowing me to participate in, and
my heart swells with gratitude, with deep, unshakable joy. And in the same
breath, just like the women at the tomb, I am terrified. Because I know it to
be true: in order to experience the deep joys of the Father, we must experience
the heartaches, too. In order to know Jesus the way that I have known Him, I
have had to give my heart to people in ways that I would never have chosen.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I can see the women with their eyes wide as they tremble in
front of the tomb. They listen to the angel’s words – can it be? – and they
scurry, terrified and filled with joy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
Is it possible to be full of joy
and thankfulness and simultaneously afraid of what obedience might bring next?
I feel it stirring in my heart, the strange mix of pain and excitement that I
will feel as each of our friends here transitions into the new life, outside of
our home, that God has planned for them; the strange and devastating love that
grows when we love the way Christ has loved us.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
I sit there in the candle light,
13 growing young women sleeping soundly a few yards away and all kinds of lives
being transformed before my eyes. I sit, terrified and full of joy.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And Jesus meets me. And He says, “Do not be afraid.”</i><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
And I ask simply, “How?” Because
as excited as I am about all He has planned, there is no denying that sometimes
I am just plain scared.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
His answer comes clear, steady.
“Go and tell my brothers. Go and tell them the good news. Go and tell all the
world that they will see me. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">They will
see me.</i>”<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
And His words ring true. We see
Him here, in the midst of pain and hurt and suffering, we see His glory all
around. We see Him reconciling all things to Himself, drawing all nations to
Himself, making all things new.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
I fall at His feet and worship
Him, for it is the only thing I know to do. I clasp His feet and remember all
He has done for me and all He has yet to do. I remember His resurrection - Life
from death. Beauty from ashes. Beauty from the torture and the nail scars and
the blood red life spilling out everywhere. Beauty from the black of the tomb.
And He does this here in my life, He gives us life to the fullest, and we can
see Him, even here.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
We tremble. Because who wouldn’t
tremble at the feet of the Savior? At just a glimpse of all He might have
planned? But as we trust, we fill with joy and peace, we overflow with hope,
just as it is promised. We know all He has done for us, and we know all that He
has yet to do when He brings us into His kingdom.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 92.65pt;">
And my prayer today is that we
might not be afraid. Friend, whatever it is you are facing, do not be afraid. Whatever
it is He is calling you to in obedience, rest assured – you will see Him! Go
and tell the world of what He has done for us, for you! We can trust Him. And
today, every day, we REJOICE in Him!<o:p></o:p></div>
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*I have asked my friends if I
could use their names in these stories in the hopes that you would join me in
prayer for each of them. As the Lord brings us to mind would you pray? We are
so grateful.<o:p></o:p></div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com114tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-29321537992628871342014-03-07T00:28:00.001-08:002014-03-07T00:28:58.795-08:00August 24, 2012...<br />
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Nearly four years ago she bounced into my life in a dress with a bright red sash. She tentatively called me Mommy after having not known one for nearly her entire five years of life and all signs of trauma were quickly masked with little girls songs and dances and giggles as she adjusted to life in a family.</div>
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Years later I watched her feet run in bright red sneakers toward the towering swing set where she would pretend to fly. We had struggled for joy and were finding it; she had thrashed against love and by God’s grace I was learning to hold on tight.</div>
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She kicked and screamed and did the unspeakable and when logic said that I should be angry or might love her less, I couldn’t and my desire for her was only stronger. And as I saw the extent of her brokenness and mine, I loved her even more.</div>
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Red beads clicked around her face as she skipped into the kitchen to find her head a resting place now nearly at my shoulder, and she whispered of the wounds once covered but never healed and an unfamiliar panic crawled up in the back of my throat and settled in as it hit me, the full weight of how much we had yet to overcome.</div>
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I took her face in my hands and through blurred eyes assured her, assured myself, that Jesus thought of her and her red beads and her red sash as His red blood spilled out, and because I knew that, I knew this – He would not leave us here.</div>
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He didn’t and I saw progress, but the fears stayed. Nights of standing by her bed, days of checking and double checking and checking again. Blame and accusations from the enemy that I could have done something differently, done something better. Anger and hatred toward the sin that could allow someone to do such horrible things to an innocent, helpless child. I knew Beauty. I fought to see Him here.</div>
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Months later on a Tuesday in the still-dark house, I drank too-strong coffee and I drank of His grace. I prayed over my daughter, a splash of red in the tapestry of our family – feisty, powerful and full of care and compassion. I wrestled with the questions of “what if” and “if only” and I told them of His sovereignty, again.</div>
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And right there on the worn pages I read Zechariah call God’s people<i> prisoners of hope</i>.</div>
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And I knew that I hadn’t been. Once more I had become more of a prisoner of overwhelming concern about the trauma of my children’s pasts and shifted my gaze away from what, Who I was really captive to.</div>
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“but in Him, it has always been ‘Yes!’ For no matter how many promises God has made, they are all ‘Yes’ in Christ.” (2 Corinthians 1: 19-20)</div>
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My flesh wants to shake the head no but I am a prisoner to God who says “Yes!” All of His promises – peace, joy, love, forgiveness, salvation! – they are Yes to me and Yes to her in Christ! Eternity is Yes in Christ. And because of His Yes I can say Yes to all that He gives. Even <i>a</i><i>ll that He allows.</i></div>
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Hope is my captor – Hope for her healing here which has already begun and hope for our life eternal with Him. Hope that He who began a good work in us is not finished yet and will carry it to completion until the day that He comes and hope that <i>He is coming.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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The sun peaks over the horizon and dances patterns across the couch. I see with new eyes, a captive of the hope set fully on the grace given me through Christ. I must live my days as this kind of prisoner, because true freedom is only found in being completely captivated by a coming King.</div>
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She who is always the first one awake pulls a book off the shelf and snuggles up next to me in silence, her nine-year-old lankiness curling up like an infant inside waiting arms. I see hope in her – and I see myself. I kick and I scream and I thrash hard against the Father’s love. I shift my focus and become a prisoner to the panic instead of the promise, and still He says, “mine.” He looks at me, broken, and calls me daughter and ever so lovingly pulls me right back in.</div>
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I study her face and can’t imagine that I know only a fraction of His love for her as I whisper the prayers of every morning over her heart, “Jesus you bind up the broken-hearted…set the captives free…comfort those who mourn…bestow beauty instead of ashes… They will be called oaks of righteousness, a display of the Lord’s splendor.” I trace the curve of her face with my fingers and praise Him for such resilience and transformation as I have seen in this child. I praise Him for her salvation and the way she is hungrily learning more about Him each day.</div>
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And then I write it small, on her hand and mine, “prisoner of <i>hope.</i>”</div>
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I want to live as a prisoner to the “Yes.” Remembering all we have seen, we set our hope fully on what we have not yet seen. We place all of our hope and all of our trust and all of our focus on the grace given us through Christ, and we beg to live captured by His promises.</div>
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******</div>
<br />
<br />
I know I have been gone for a while. I think I am just having a hard time expressing all that God has laid on my heart. We are well, and experiencing a season of SO much growth and joy and peace in Him. I am so thankful, and I know that it is in part because of the prayers of so many. Thank you for lifting us up.<br />
<br />
The Lord put it on my heart today to repost this blog that I wrote a few years ago during a very difficult season. Yesterday during some sweet, quiet nail-painting time, this same little (not-so-little-anymore) one shared with me some of the deep emotions of her heart, and I was once again floored and devastated to think of the way-beyond-their-years experiences each of my children have from their years outside of a safe and loving home. This morning, she bounded into the kitchen, laid her head against my shoulder (is it possible that she is this tall?!) and ask me to tie red ribbons in her hair for school.<br />
<br />
<i>Red ribbons.</i> To match her red skirt. Isn't He in all the littlest details? He spoke hope over me, and her, once more. And I looked into each one of these young women's faces and saw unimaginable growth and hope and strength in Him. Is there a more devastating love than that we feel for our children? Surely only that which the Father feels toward each one of us.<br />
<br />
Oh, friends. He is so faithful to us! Wherever you are, whatever impossible, broken situation you are facing, He longs to speak His hope and His favor and His beauty over you. Be blessed as you rest and hope in Him today.katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com152tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-17769294075279701792013-12-24T22:17:00.000-08:002013-12-24T22:17:02.273-08:00
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“And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby,
keeping watch over their flocks at night. An angel of the Lord appeared to
them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified. But
the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy
that will be for all people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born
to you; He is Christ, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a
baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.</div>
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Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with
the angel, praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth
peace to men on whom His favor rests.’”</div>
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-Luke 2:8-14</div>
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You will find Him in a feeding trough.</div>
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You, on whom His favor rests.</div>
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You will find Him where you least expect Him.</div>
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Do you hear His whisper this morning? “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You will find me where you least expect me.”</i></div>
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This, the very most unexpected place, this is where we find
Him. Even more, this is where He finds us. </div>
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In the long dark nights, in the lowering of my friends’
bodies into the dark earth, in the resettling of their children into
foster-families, in the impossibly hard parenting and the shepherding of my
children through searing loss, I have known Jesus. In the endless blending and
grinding of food for a feeding tube, and the endless chopping of carrots for
soup, and the long lists of spelling words and multiplication facts, and the
unexpected joy of just <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">being</i>, we have
known Jesus. In the blazing hot sun, in the forever-caked-on-my-heels red mud,
over the thousands of potholes, I have known impossible, unexpected Grace.</div>
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And this is my prayer for you this Christmas. That in the
very most unlikely places, in the hard and the hurt and the dark, you would
know the unexpected hope that can only come from our Savior. Impossible grace
abounds, even where we least expect it.</div>
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Can you hear it? His message to the shepherds is His message
to us today. “You will find a baby lying in a manger. You will find my love
where you least expect it. You will find me in the mud, in the muck, in the
dirt. And in the mess of your sin and the hurt of this life, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I will find you.</i>”</div>
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Merry Christmas. May impossible, unexpected grace be yours
through Christ our Savior.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5nsH_BJg-EUNhzlkohydfJZbDX91OpZBHrlA0CdtvaU15g0pmu2Z95d5SrS8cu8mtQhyphenhyphenQ6lGZsPBBz3oY8UO3vmxpm3qWVv6M1qW9Yo7AhTR9wVj0PGYVyf6sCaRgH7QKwHvWh02rJTb/s1600/_0004084.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN5nsH_BJg-EUNhzlkohydfJZbDX91OpZBHrlA0CdtvaU15g0pmu2Z95d5SrS8cu8mtQhyphenhyphenQ6lGZsPBBz3oY8UO3vmxpm3qWVv6M1qW9Yo7AhTR9wVj0PGYVyf6sCaRgH7QKwHvWh02rJTb/s320/_0004084.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcIoqwfkwW3iUS6_fze2V4PfAY5-0C5TXmIOedXdR-KBOs8PnGe6J5sP8ypE8IkAo4qcaqjTVu7eLAIUBaCcryc8x8kheRd5wDpQwofwYnkMNzqugF_HnASanlBuxDUgTQKDEPRHAt-4W/s1600/_0004475-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcIoqwfkwW3iUS6_fze2V4PfAY5-0C5TXmIOedXdR-KBOs8PnGe6J5sP8ypE8IkAo4qcaqjTVu7eLAIUBaCcryc8x8kheRd5wDpQwofwYnkMNzqugF_HnASanlBuxDUgTQKDEPRHAt-4W/s320/_0004475-1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<!--EndFragment-->katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com140tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-65320008169650780442013-12-23T12:01:00.002-08:002013-12-23T12:01:41.901-08:00<br />
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Can you imagine the stench?</div>
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Joseph has walked and Mary ridden 90 miles in the scorching sun, the wind whipping around their faces and caking them with dust from the dirt road. More sweat pours from Mary’s brow as she experiences the pains of labor for the first time. The stable is packed with all the travelers’ animals. Flies buzz around them in the heat and the air is heavy with the smells of sickly sweet hay and manure.</div>
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And into this, a baby enters.</div>
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I have witnessed this kind of birth before. Woman sighs and baby falls right into the dirt, and in the dark of a tiny mud hut, with the light of just a thin candle, our eyes search for something, anything, sharp to cut the cord. Water is a luxury and too far to fetch at this hour so we wrap the baby in whatever filthy rag-scraps we can find without even wiping her off first.</div>
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<img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5699008273248038322" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho2-hUPoxHQdHktXfLh5n3AcA8E5TeEvbSoTI3T2LMZK0Aqia5OQzUMw0CwJIHsq3iKhm13CybpMlqm3Udw6vkGspxV5-cNM-anKr4dY5_zo6Yo-uaVhojwMBnTFAzAnMhk4LUjr3l_J8L/s400/154274_473890319261_502044261_5916886_3887604_n.jpg" style="cursor: pointer; height: 400px; width: 267px;" /></div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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Joseph, still merely a child himself, searches for anything he can find in the dim light to cut the cord and swaddle his child, probably rags carrying the afore mentioned stench and the dirt of the journey. Trembling and exhausted they wrap Him as best they can, and swatting flies away lay him in the same trough out of which these animals have been eating.</div>
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Behold, the Savior.</div>
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And in this moment God fulfils every promise and every prophecy. This, God’s perfect time. God does not wait for the world to get ready, He enters right into the mess.</div>
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He makes Himself very least, no more status or opportunity than an easily overlooked infant in the slums where I spend so many hard hours. Very least so that He can commune with the very most desperate – you and me. He doesn’t mind that I am not ready yet and He doesn’t mind the wretched condition of my heart or the stench of my sin. <i>God’s time is now</i> and He enters into the mess, ready or not.</div>
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His perfect timing, <i>now</i>. Now is where He has called us. And we are just not ready yet. We need to clean up the house a bit and pray a little more and seek more counsel and we don’t know how to do that yet and oh, we have our excuses. And God says, “I’m here now, and I am ok with the mess because <i>I am here for the messy</i>.”</div>
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God doesn’t need us to be ready for Him; He has been ready for us since the beginning of time and the Messiah is here calling us to commune with the Holy One, to eat at His table.</div>
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I want the house to be organized and kids to be clean and nicely dressed and I want dinner to come out of the oven on time, but at the end of the day they laundry still piles and there are still crumbs in the corner and can anyone remember if I brushed my teeth today? And it can’t be the New Year yet because <i>I am just not ready</i> for it to be a new year yet.</div>
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But I remember when I wasn’t ready to move to Uganda. I remember when I wasn’t ready to kiss the people I loved the most goodbye. I remember when I didn’t have enough money to sponsor just ten children, and I remember when I wasn’t old enough to be a mother, and I remember when I didn’t know how to parent. I remember when I couldn’t cook for fifteen people and when I didn’t want to share my house and my things and my life with sick people and addicts. I remember when I was afraid of the slum community that now holds hundreds of friends and when I was terrified that my daughter would never walk and when I was scared that we would never heal after tragic loss. And I remember that never, not once, was I really as ready as I wanted to be. And I <i>remember that God kept all His promises</i>,<i> </i>every last one, in His perfect time.</div>
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This new season looms and I don’t know what is next. But He doesn’t need me to be ready for this season because <i>He is ready.</i> He just needs me to be clinging to His feet.</div>
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Now. This is where He has called us.</div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com65tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-15297267838947420182013-11-15T00:13:00.000-08:002013-11-15T00:13:00.494-08:00Over here today...<a href="http://www.redletterchristians.org/now-red-carpet-katie-davis/"> http://www.redletterchristians.org/now-red-carpet-katie-davis/</a><div>
<br /></div>
<div>
A little bit more of a candid view into our daily life. I am humbled and thankful!</div>
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<br /></div>
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(and what a goofy picture!)</div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com44tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-87136446961086763312013-11-07T04:54:00.000-08:002013-11-07T04:54:07.620-08:00<!--StartFragment-->
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Just one little bird.</div>
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<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>She’s up when
the stillness of 5:30 nudges me awake and I struggle to peel back heavy
eyelids. She’s up and she sings. I wonder how she can even tell that it’s
almost morning. I wonder why she sings yet. I tip-toe to the coffee pot and
flick on barely enough lights as to not wake my children, and this is my <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">quiet</i> time and I briefly just wish that
one little bird would be quiet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“It’s not light yet. Shhhh. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">It’s not light yet.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I lift my eyes from the worn pages of Isaiah and my gaze
falls on Sarah’s notebook, left haphazardly on the table after yesterday’s
writing assignment. She wrote that I was brave. That I had courage. But as I
sit there in the dark, I think that I am not.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I miss my friends. I know where they are, and that it is
better, by far, than suffering and sickness, but I wish they were here. I miss
Betty’s smile as I wiped her forehead and the way her weak hand felt in mine,
her fingernails hot-pink. I miss the still, quiet hours by her bedside and the
way her eyes understood even if her ears did not.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I miss Katherine’s laugh, loud and audacious and when I see
her children smile, I see her, and I wish the ending had been different. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I see Sarah’s words on the paper, “Our sick friend lived
with us for a long time and my mom was brave and took care of her. I saw her
praying for her and I know that she was loved and cared for. My mom kept her,
and she had courage.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I cry, because I do not feel courageous. I feel
downright defeated sometimes. Maybe courage is not at all about the absence of
fear but about obedience even when we are afraid. Courage is trusting when we
don’t know what is next, leaning into the hard and knowing that it <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> be hard, but more, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">God will be near.</i> <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Maybe bravery is just looking fear in
the face and telling it that is dos not win because <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I have known The Lord here.</i> I have known The Lord in the long, dark
night.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The little bird sings loud in the dark. And slowly, the sun
peaks over the horizon.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
At school I ask Joyce what her definition of courage is, and
she says, “to have faith.” Maybe that is just it. That we still tremble, but
more than that we have faith. That even though we feel uncertain, we press into
a God who is so certain, so sure, so steady. He carries us, He lifts our heads.
And His unfailing love and comfort becomes our courage and our hope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is days later and it is raining. The huge drops pelt our
tin roof so hard that we can hardly hear a thing, but as the rain slows, I make
out a familiar noise and I laugh. It is the same little bird that cannot
contain her song too early in the morning. I wonder where she is and how she
can keep singing in this storm. I wonder why she sings. But the rain slows to a
trickle and the sun peaks from behind the clouds and suddenly all I can hear is
her glorious song.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“To have faith, “I think. And I wonder, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">does she sing because she knows the sun is coming?<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I want to be just like that little bird.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Hope is a crazy thing, a courageous thing. That little bird,
she feels the sun coming, knows with certainty that it will come, even when she
can’t quite see it yet.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We live in a world where innocent people suffer and good
friends die and stories don’t have the endings we prayed for, and the pain and
the hurt, it is everywhere. But the Joy and the Hope that we find in our
Savior? It is everywhere, too.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
do not have all the answers; in fact, I don’t have many at all. But this is
what I know: God is who He says He is. And in the hurt and the pain and the
suffering, God is near, and He is good, even when the ending isn’t.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I can sing, because I know what is coming. I can hope,
because I know <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Who is coming.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">In the dark of the
night, I have seen His face, and I have known His promises to be true, and I
know the Light is coming.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I want to be brave enough to hold out the hope of the
Gospel to a world that is hurting and alone and afraid. Not a hope that is the
absence of pain or heartache or suffering, not optimism disguised as hope that
waits for the best-case scenario or happy ending, but a Hope that is the
knowledge and full assurance that our Savior is on His way. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s not light yet, but I know Him, the One who is the
Light.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so in the dark, I will sing.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com161tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-50944879339278122522013-10-11T00:50:00.001-07:002013-10-11T00:50:32.445-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Eight-year-old Angela Amoiti lives deep in the Ugandan village of Buyizia. As we travel on the washed out roads, Angela informs us this is her first time in a motorcar. Winding roads and thick trees hide the home where this beautiful girl lives with her mother, father, and sister Sarah.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Neighboring children meet us on the road and walk alongside the car to Angela’s home... </span><a href="http://blog.amazima.org/">read more about my friend Angela here</a>katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com25tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-73007195193182270222013-08-25T11:13:00.004-07:002013-08-25T11:13:57.773-07:00Want to keep up with all we are doing over here at Amazima?<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/">Click here!</a><br />
<br />
Here is our latest:<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">Last week, Amazima hosted our first support group for Amazima families affected by HIV and AIDS. It got off to a late start as here in Uganda, "9am" means "around noon." After everyone showed up, we began with a prayer and the workshop began!<br /><br />Each person in attendance introduced themselves and shared how they are related to Amazima. Glory was given to God while discussing all of the ways he has carried our families. Through the hard times and the good times, everyone agreed that God is good- ALL the time!<br /><br />Following introductions, we started the day by going over basic information about HIV and AIDS. Although basic facts are pretty well known among the Ugandan families, they are often times mixed with misinformation. This educational segment of the day provided us with a great opportunity to debunk any myths circling around the communities. Our favorite truth to promote? <span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><a href="http://bit.ly/AMI-HIV" style="text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">HIV is NOT a death sentence!</a></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/">Read more...</a></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com48tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-56411295647223778452013-08-02T01:34:00.000-07:002013-08-09T02:28:09.395-07:00<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I know, I kind of abandoned ship here for a while. I didn’t
mean to leave you hanging.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Katherine’s death has taken me a lot longer to process than
most things usually do. Maybe because it felt like a big final loss after a
season of lots and lots of losses. Maybe because I have a tendency to want to
see redemption here and now, to want to tie it all up in a neat little package,
even though I know that His ways are not my ways and a “good ending” is not
always seen in this lifetime. Maybe because I feel that I should have some kind
of understanding before I bear my heart to the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Friends, God is still good and God is still working. In a
season of much loss and much hardship, He whispers, “Look how far I have
carried you. And still I go before you.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But trying to tell you where I am at right now feels a little
like trying to serve grape juice as wine. Words on a screen feel like a cheap
substitute, unable to capture the grace and the mercy that God has shown us
during this season, unable to explain the nearness I have felt and the new ways
the Father is revealing His heart to me.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is joy in this place. There is peace in this place. It
is Jesus. He is very near to us. And I am writing it all down in hopes that one
day soon I will again feel that it is time to share it with the world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But for now there is something very sacred about sharing my
heart with Jesus only.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you for those of you who continue to check in on us
and who continue to pray. That you would sit before the Father on our behalf
means more to me than I could ever tell you here. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2013_04_01_archive.html">Betty</a> is still living with us. She is a constant reminder of
God’s love to me. Health wise, she is recovering very slowly, but she knows the
Savior and she is a fighter. She is full of joy, and it is our joy to care for
her.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/2013/06/prayer-request-surgery-for-simon.html">Simon</a> and his grandmother are also living with us while
Simon gains weight and gets ready for another surgery. Simon’s grandmother is
darling and extremely devoted to caring for Simon. It is always a bit
stretching to share our home with new people for an extended period of time,
but I am thankful for the way the Father grows us in community, the way that He
can turn strangers into family.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<a href="http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2012/12/the-spirit-of-lord-god-is-upon-me.html">The girls</a> are doing phenomenally well, growing like weeds
and doing great in school. Watching them grow in their knowledge and love of
the Lord is by far the best part of parenting. Without a doubt, parenting
reveals to me more of my own depravity and more of my loving Father’s heart
than anything else ever could. I am humbled and grateful.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
To all who ask the question, "Are you ok?" The answer is a resounding "Yes." I am more in love with my Savior than I have ever been before. I pray that each day my love for Him would only grow. He is good to us, friends, and He doesn't ever, ever leave.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Thank you, again for your prayers and your love. I will be
back soon. You can continue to keep up with Amazima <a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/">here </a>in the mean time.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com109tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-58582558683936192162013-04-26T22:29:00.000-07:002013-04-26T22:33:23.774-07:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
She reaches for my hand and smiles. I reach for hers and I
force a smile back, force myself to look truly joyful. I want her to know joy
here. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I want to know joy here.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
At 26 years old Betty is the beautiful mother of a 3 year
old little boy. She weighs 69 pounds and battles AIDS, tuberculosis and all the
complications that come with the two. We know the drill. She reaches out her
hand and it reminds me so much of a <a href="http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2013_02_01_archive.html">hand I held once</a>, of a woman I loved hard,
of a friend who became a family member.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
I fight the tears and I force a smile. After all, she might
live. She could live, and right now, I know she needs me to believe that she
will. How do you keep believing that when the last time you were wrong? When
the time before that, and the time before that you were wrong? I sit down on
the side of my couch that is now her bed and I ask her about her family. A hot feeling surges up in
the back of my throat as I feel my heart start to put up a wall. I know better.
I <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">should</i> know better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;">
After all, my job is to believe with out wavering. His job
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">everything else.</i></div>
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<br /></div>
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<br />
<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Just then a having an
issue of blood for twelve years came up behind Him and touched the edge of His
cloak. She said to herself, “If only I touch His cloak, I will be healed.”
Jesus turned and saw her. “Take heart, daughter, “ He said, “Your faith has
healed you. And the woman was healed from that moment. (Matthew 9:20-22)<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I resonate deeply with this woman. I can see her,
reaching out for his hem. I can feel the strain, that desperate reaching,
longing just to touch Him, just even the very edge. A longing for only Him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am the woman with the issue of blood. Except I am the
woman with the issue of doubt. I am the woman with the issue of sin, with the
issue of flesh, with the issue of forgetfulness. I am a woman who wants to snap
my arms shut and protect, fold my arms tight around this chest to guard my
heart that is still so raw and exposed from being broken. I want to gather
these children to myself and shelter them from the ugly hurt of this world.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But I can’t fold my arms and simultaneously reach out for my
Savior. I reach for Him and I have no choice but to fling my arms wide again. I
reach for Betty’s hand and I know, just like that woman, I must seek Him. I
must know Him. “If only I touch His cloak…” </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And do you know what? He isn’t out of reach. I stretch out
my arm and I realize that He is right here, just two steps in front of me,
clearing the way. The sweet promises of Isaiah flood my mind, “His robe filled the temple.” I reach and I feel that His hem is wide, enough for me and for you
and today and tomorrow. Enough to fill and enough to overflow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some time last week in the too-early hours of the morning, I
asked God why He allowed me to believe so strongly that Katherine would live
when she wasn’t actually going to. I can usually get a pretty good sense for
those things. It is hard for me to think that My Father saw me in my hope, He knew I
was believing, and He simultaneously knew the ending. I think He answered that
He gave me the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">grace</i> to believe that
she would live so that in her final days she would feel hope and high spirits
all around her, so that she would feel that she was fought for and that she was
worth the fight. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">She was worth it.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Its His message to us on the cross and it is His message to
the woman with the issue of blood as He stoops down to look into her eyes, to speak
to her, to meet her need: “You are worth it.” And I want it to be my message to
these hurting that He brings into our lives: <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You</i>, you are worth it. We are for you. <i>He is for you.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I want my life to be found in chasing after Him and I want my arms to be filled, not just reaching for, but gathering in the hem of Jesus. His robe fills the temple. His glory fills the
earth. I want my arms to be filled with gathering His grace, His love, His
goodness. I want to follow Him wherever He is going and be so full of Him that He is overflowing out of my arms, out of my very life. Even when it means reaching out my hand with a smile to a situation that might hurt, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i> hurt. <a href="http://kissesfromkatie.blogspot.com/2012/12/so-these-are-your-treatment-options_13.html">He gave me the grace to hope.</a><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>And so I am
asking that He would give more grace, again, even if it is harder to grasp this
time. Grace to feel joy and grace to hope for life and grace to fight hard,
because people are worth the fight. Grace to have arms so filled with Him that they have to remain open, and that He spills out.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<!--StartFragment-->
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I look at Betty and my joy is real. We open our arms to her
because she is worth it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And I wanted you to know today, that <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">you</i> are worth it. He fought for you. You reach, and He bends, He
cups your face in His hands and He says, “Take heart. Be healed. <i>I am for you.</i>” I pray we
would know deeply His love for us. I pray that we would fight for His love in
this world because we know. Keep reaching, friend, He’s right here. His hem is
wide. Let's fill our arms with gathering it.</div>
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<br />
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<br /></div>
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<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Thank you for praying for Betty with us. I will post more frequent updates here: <a href="https://twitter.com/katieinuganda">https://twitter.com/katieinuganda </a></i>katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com182tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-81450320147123240852013-02-14T09:09:00.000-08:002013-02-15T10:46:02.118-08:00<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> I </span>can’t believe
that it has been over a month now since I patted my sweet friend’s head as I
said goodnight to her small frame on my couch. I can’t believe it has been over
a month since I sat behind her in the hospital bed holding her body in the only
position that was comfortable in those final hours.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And truth be told, in the late night hours alone with the
Father on the cold, hard floor of my bathroom, I have beat my fists against the
smooth tile and against my strong Father’s chest and I have sobbed it until the
words won’t come, “I can’t believe she’s dead.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">We fought so hard.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is her little boy’s sixth birthday. We had talked for
weeks about the party we would have, with a cake, but that was when they still
lived here, when his mother still lived. Instead, I drive across the bridge to
where he is now being raised by his aunt and a kind neighbor. We bring the
cake. We sing Happy Birthday and he is ok and the kids have fun and are happy.
And as we drive away and all smile and wave, I cry.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I didn’t want the story to end this way.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I wrote the ending in my head and it was the ending where my
friend gets better, becomes strong and healthy, and is able to move out with
her children. It was the ending where they get to sign their names on the
bottom of our table to be remembered as friends who lived here and
fellowshipped with us and we would all cry happy tears as we served them their
last meal before they headed out to their new life healthy and whole. In the
ending I wrote, I didn’t have to look 4 children under the age of ten in the
eyes and tell them that their mother died in the night as I bounce their baby
sister on my knee to keep her quiet. In my ending I didn’t spend every hour of
5 consecutive days fighting and fighting and fighting for a mother to get well
and end up clinging to my best friend as we lower a body into a casket.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But His voice comes strong, steady, clear, “Child, this is
not the end.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And behold, some men
were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed and they were seeking to bring
him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in because of the crowd, they
went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the
midst before Jesus. And when He saw their faith He said, “Man, your sins are
forgiven you.”<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
First, He forgave their sins. First, He secured the eternal.
Because really, what is a few more years of walking in comparison to an
eternity of worship and sins all forgiven?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Death is not the end. Then end was when He hung on a cross
and rose from a tomb and I asked for life, and Life is what He gave. Better,
glorious, eternal Life. In those final hours, I held my friend’s head, and I
watched her chest heave as her soul first laid eyes on His face and I could
nearly feel His breath on mine. And no, I do not know His ways, but I know Him.
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">I know Him.</i> And I do not just lay my
friends before Jesus for physical healing but that they might know Him too,
that they might be saved. And Katherine, she knows Him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We fought so hard. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">And
still we won. He won.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This week I take a two-month-old baby to the doctor to
confirm that he has a terminal skin condition that causes burn-like blisters to
cover his entire body and will ultimately lead to his death. There is no
treatment. I wrap and dress the wounds because I know how. Because keeping them
clean will prevent infection and anemia from blood loss and prolong his life.
But I recognize that prolonging his life will ultimately prolong his suffering.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I take a grandfather from our community in for a check-up.
Cancer. It is everywhere. They give him a few months, weeks maybe. We try to
make him comfortable, and keep him company. We tell stories of a Father who
would send a Son, the only sacrifice that could absolve all this sin, the only
blood that could wash us snow white. But part of me still wants to fight. Still
wants to research, still wants to explore other options, still will not believe
that this is it.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There is something so sacred about the fight for life. I
believe that God wants us to fight. There is a focus that comes from being so
close to death, a clarity, a purpose. My heart that still fought
for Katherine and believed for her healing even when my mind knew there were no more
options cries out that this can’t be it, this cannot be the end, there must be
something else. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is the audacity of hope.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We fight and we wait and a watching world says, “Why hope
for life in a world of death?” And we know the answer. My heart
is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">right</i>. This isn’t it, this is not
the end, and there<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> is</i> something else.
His life is better.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Our fight is not for this life, our fight is for eternity. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We wanted to let you know that our friend went to be with
her Maker. We wanted to thank you for praying. And we wanted to encourage you
that the fight on this side of heaven is not over yet. But we look at the pain
and the suffering all around us and strange as it is, our hope only grows. We
know Him and so we lift our heads to the Life-Giver and say, “We rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing
that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character
produces hope, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">our hope does not
disappoint us </i>because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts by the
Holy Spirit.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Here’s to hope, friends, a hope that does not disappoint.
Keep fighting for the Gospel, keep fighting for Life, because He has already
won.</div>
<!--EndFragment-->
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com243tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-424400634741790292012-12-24T21:01:00.000-08:002012-12-24T21:01:17.129-08:00Some people get presents under their Christmas tree.<br />
<br />
Me? I get a family of 5. 4 children under 8 and their mother sleep on the couches and on mattresses laid out on the living room floor.<br />
<br />
It's 5:30 am and I find a place to squeeze in between the pile of children and blankets and attempt to have some "quiet time" by the light of the Christmas tree. I am distracted. Her kids all have a cough and they breathe heavily and toss and turn all around me. Her chest heaves and a small moan escapes her lips. The rain pounds loudly on the tin roof and we need this rain so I try to be thankful for it. I dream for her future. I dream that she'll live. I fleetingly wonder if there are relative who will raise this brood of young ones if she doesn't.<br />
<br />
I wonder what their future will hold. I wonder what this day will hold. I watch their chests move up and down and hear my precious ones begin to stir in the other room, and I wonder if I can so it again today, the 17 children and the sick and the broken and those who will come for dinner and just all of these lives with all of their needs. The house is all a-twinkle, and I remind myself of all God's promises fulfilled in a baby and breathe it deep, Grace.<br />
<br />
And I am so thankful that Jesus meets us in these squished places. In the stretched places. In-the-squeezed-between-the-tree-and-the-kids moments, in the desperate-for-quiet-on-the-bathroom-floor-because-everywhere-else-is-full moments.<br />
<br />
I read Luke. I think of Bethlehem and how it had no room, and I think of how His parents squeezed between the animals to place Him in a feeding trough. The shepherds gazed in wonder but Mary held all this wonder in the silence of her heart. I bet she dreamed of His future. I bet it was muddy and loud in there, but the sky was all a-twinkle with the light of that star, the heavens bursting with joy at God's promises all fulfilled, Grace.<br />
<br />
I look around and know: this is what He came for. The King of the universe who created all things, even life itself, clothed in splendor, took off His royal robes, laid aside His crown and squeezed all of the fullness of God into the womb of a woman and then into swaddling clothes in a manger.<br />
<br />
He calls my name right here and how I long to recognize Him here, right here.<br />
<br />
The squished places and the stretched places, the moments that are loud and messy and uncertain, this is what He came for. The heartaches and the doubt and the wounds that our sin carves deep, that's why He is here. And all this life hanging in the dark of the morning, isn't this why we wait, why we celebrate? Isn't this why we light up the candles and the tree and the house and say with all the longing in our hearts, "Come, Lord Jesus"?<br />
<br />
Come, Lord Jesus.<br />
<br />
This morning in the dark, in the rain, in whatever mess or squished place or heartache you find yourself in, all God's promises are Yes and Amen, and we can rejoice in thanksgiving! The Savior is here with us, Grace.<br />
<br />
His promise is Yes to you, friends. "Yes, I have come, and Yes, I am coming. Yes, I am with you always, even to the very end of the age."<br />
<br />
I pray that you'll recognize His handprints all over your day today.<br />
<br />
Merry Christmas.katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com184tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-69307929834702322732012-12-20T11:03:00.000-08:002012-12-20T11:03:00.899-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmHgiEBrbhsPrwzfnkuXTPy0wjQN5JyurGxsVATBr-_S-pdg55ti61qkFg_F_5XJ75o-TY0DOMHTIMcFLUrh4k6PD9NyS1OEXrc1FVjmPlzJYbPKRR36GK5ezAwRaUMgFrhioLOiita3W/s1600/IMG_2144.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWmHgiEBrbhsPrwzfnkuXTPy0wjQN5JyurGxsVATBr-_S-pdg55ti61qkFg_F_5XJ75o-TY0DOMHTIMcFLUrh4k6PD9NyS1OEXrc1FVjmPlzJYbPKRR36GK5ezAwRaUMgFrhioLOiita3W/s640/IMG_2144.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
because the Lord has anointed me </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to bring good news to the poor;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to proclaim liberty to the captives,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and the day of vengeance of our God;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to comfort all who mourn.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
To grant to those who mourn in Zion - </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes,</div>
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the oil of gladness instead of mourning;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair, </div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
that they may be called oaks of righteousness,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the planting of the Lord, that he may be glorified.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
They shall build up the ancient ruins;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
they shall raise up the former devastations;</div>
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they shall repair cities,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
the devastations of many generations.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Strangers shall stand and tend your flocks'</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vinedressers,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
but you shall be called priests of the Lord;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
they shall speak of you as the ministers of our God;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
you shall eat the wealth of nations,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and in their glory you shall boast.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Instead of shame, there shall be a double portion;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
instead of dishonor they shall rejoice in their lot;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
therefore in their land they shall possess a double portions;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
they shall have everlasting joy.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
For I the Lord love justice;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I hate robbery and iniquity;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I will faithfully give them their recompense,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and I will make an everlasting covenant with them.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Their offspring shall be known among the nations,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and their descendants in the midst of the peoples;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
al who see them shall acknowledge them,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
that they are an offspring the Lord has blessed.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
mys soul shall exult in my God,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
for he has clothed me with garments of salvation;</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
He has covered me in the robe of righteousness.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
as a bridegroom decks himself like a priest with a beautiful headdress,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and as a brie adorns herself with jewels.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
For as the earth brings forth its sprouts.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
and as a garden causes what is sown in ti to sprout up,</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
to sprout up before all nations.</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Isaiah 61</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
Oh, how He has loved us! Merry Christmas, from our family to yours!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com97tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-2902987639793653982012-12-13T11:06:00.000-08:002012-12-13T11:06:34.355-08:00<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<br />
"So these are your treatment options..." I choke back a sob and let my voice trail off. How do I present a 30 year old mother of 5 with the fact that we've already done all we can do? "...I will support you, whatever you choose." I turn so she doesn't see me blink back the tears.<br />
<br />
"For me, I would like to choose life." The words are steady, certain. "My children are still so young. I would like to live."<br />
<br />
I choke with all the times I have taken this breath in my lungs for granted. The tears burn hot but I try not to let them fall. Not yet. Its not over yet. Yes, dear friend, oh yes, how I want you to live.<br />
<br />
There are days we stare death in the face around here. Sometimes the right diet and medication just isn't enough and the heart pumps too hard and the chest heaves for breath and we see it coming. Other times we blink and a life is gone. Sometimes friends cling tightly to life and are given a miraculous second chance. Other times they cling to my hand as I whisper that Jesus is right on the other side and they slip away to be with Him. I feel it coming, but I don't want to. I watch her smile at her children and I can't help but hope. I know the God who works miracles, the One who calls things that are not as though they were. I know Him, and I can't help but ask it, "<i>Oh Lord, might she live</i>?"<br />
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I think of a few men carrying their paralyzed friend on a mat, desperate to lay him at the feet of Jesus. I think of how cumbersome it must have been to try to get him up on that roof, how difficult it must have been to remove the tiles so they could lower him down through the ceiling to the Lord, into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus (Luke 5:17-25). I think I know the desperation they must have felt, the urgency to get him there. I remember that because of the faith of the men, Jesus forgave their friend's sin, and for His glory alone, He healed that man's legs as well, told him to get up and walk.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I know this God.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
And I, too, want to choose life.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
And even when I have seen one too many die of this horrible, life-sucking disease we call AIDS, I want to choose to fight. And even when temptation and despair is overwhelming, I want to choose hope. And even when man's sin and depravity threaten to be all consuming, I want to choose the victory that is in Christ Jesus.</div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<i>I want to choose Life.</i></div>
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<i><br /></i></div>
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I know the prognosis. I read the reports and the chest x-rays and the liver panel and I knew the doctor's speech before he gave it, that the antiretrovirals meant to save her life were tearing her stomach apart and that 80 pounds is just too small for a woman of five and a half feet. I know what the world says.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But she would like to live. <i>And I know the Life-Giver.</i></div>
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I want to show her. I want to show her how we hope against hope, believe against all the impossible that He who died to give us life is making all things beautiful and perfect. I want to show her the One who is Life and how we know that His ways are better and higher and that He is working all things for our good, but still we can ask for a miracle; we beg for it.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I clasp her hand and I close my eyes and tonight I want to bring her into the middle of the crowd, right in front of Jesus. I tuck them all in and I hand her a glass of milk with her medicine and we watch her children's chests rise and fall with sleep on these mattresses all over the floor as hers heaves hard for each breath.</div>
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<br /></div>
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I know the Life-Giver. So tonight I lower my friend Katherine through the roof. I beg on her behalf, on the behalf of her children that she might know Him more and that for His glory alone He might heal her, call her to get up and walk.</div>
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Would you join me?</div>
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<br />katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com240tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-739247093115962592012-11-23T01:18:00.000-08:002012-11-23T01:18:15.534-08:00<div style="text-align: center;">
Happy Thanksgiving from our family to yours!!</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
http://amazimaministries.blogspot.com/2012/11/happy-thanksgiving.html</div>
katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com28tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-55213345425850241452012-11-13T10:45:00.000-08:002012-11-15T00:12:42.235-08:00<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
I watch the tears roll down her cheeks and am devastated for
her. I know she must be crying because of the pain of her burns or because of
the pain in her heart at the thought of her husband pushing her into the fire.
I place my hand on her shoulder and my eyes beckon her to share.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
“My stomach is hurting,” she says, and that’s not what I was
expecting, “This is the first time I have eaten this week.”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s Thursday.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I pray because I don’t know what else to do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sure, I can feed this woman lunch but
after a week of an empty stomach that may just hurt more than it helps, and I
can’t do much to change her situation, to relieve her of her abusive husband or
her job picking scrap metal out of the garbage heap. I can feed her now but she
goes home to 3 starving children and a future that seems utterly hopeless. We
pray.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I get a middle of the night text from a dear friend who has
been more of an encouragement to me than she will ever know. Her mom’s biopsy
results have come back and the tumor on her brain is cancerous. I can barely
choke out words to say that my heart is so heavy for her, that we will carry
this burden with them in prayer. I am blown away by her strength and feel
completely un-encouraging. We pray.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The hurt doesn’t stop. A teenager needs his leg amputated
because an infection that could have been preventable is now out of control. A
4-year-old’s arm is permanently damaged because his mom didn’t have enough
money to have it casted when he broke it a few months ago. My friend carries
the unborn child of her late husband but confides in me that she would rather
not. 5 children in our program watch their mother fight HIV which is rapidly
sucking the life right out of her. Another friend threatens to abandon her
children (again) because she just can’t make enough money to make ends meet and
she would rather be apart from them than watch them suffer.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
We move them into that little house in the back and we ask
for miracles.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
13 hearts are growing into women under my roof and need more
and more of Mom, more and more of His truth. I sit, erase the to-do list from
my mind and will myself to be present, to be available. The gate opens again
and again and the phone rings and all these people, they just want to know that
they are not alone in their hurt, just want to be heard.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So many hearts to tend.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Who is God on the days when love just doesn’t feel like
enough?</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have been reading through the book of Revelation. I’ll be
honest, even after reading several commentaries and looking up lots of Greek
words, there are parts of it that I just can’t quite wrap my mind around. I
think this is ok. How marvelous to serve a God who is so much more magnificent
than I can even comprehend! What I have noticed though is that through all of
it, a few things remain constant regardless of tribulation and destruction.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
God is on the throne. All the angels and all elders and all
the saints and all the believers are gathered at His feet. And they can’t stop
worshiping Him. They <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">can’t stop worshiping
Him. </i>Forever.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
And so this week life is hard and it is heavy. Because I
love so many and I want them to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
Him and I want Him to heal them. I want the hurt to be over, but I know that
one day, it will be. And in the mean time I just ask it, I beg it, that we
would be people who cannot stop worshiping the Lamb who is worthy. That through
the hard and the struggle and the moments that just seem so hopeless we would
cling to the hope that He’s already won and our only response would be
adoration and praise.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Eyes on Him. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because when our love is not enough, His was. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">His is.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
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After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” –Revelation 5:9-12</div>
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<br />katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com145tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-38851742154684319182012-11-05T10:41:00.000-08:002012-11-05T10:41:59.048-08:00It is my privilege to be able to introduce to you some of our phenomenal staff. These people have taught me so much and I am continually blown away by their wisdom and their joy in serving. I am so excited for you to "meet" Siraji. This man's dedication to serving the people around him is something all of us could learn from. His smile shines with the joy of a person who truly knows God and I am humbled and honored to call him an employee and friend!<br />
<br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i>I put on my first shoe when I was 14 years old.<span> </span>I grew up sleeping on banana leaves...</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;"><i><span> </span>I want to exhaust myself with helping others so that a life is improved.</i></span><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/2012/11/compassion-interview-with-mentor-siraji.html">click here to finish reading this story...</a><br />
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com23tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-11004378138930710832012-10-29T13:01:00.000-07:002012-10-29T13:01:34.348-07:00<!--StartFragment-->
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
My kitchen is painted yellow.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Because yellow is the color of sunshine and of joy and
because yellow is my favorite.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s never quite as clean as I want it to be in here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Tonight as I stand in the after-bed-time quiet my eyes
follow a trail of red footprints across this floor that is supposed to be white
and the tears well. So many memories held here.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
This kitchen, this is there I serve. Many days, this kitchen
is where I live. These counters, nicked and crumb covered, the sink, one side
piled high with drying dishes, they could tell some stories. They’ve seen my
joy as I gaze out the window at my laughing brood and raise still-soapy hands
high in praise. They’ve seen the tears fall in defeat over the just-peeled
carrots and the open pages of Psalms. They’ve heard my tongue snap in exasperation
as another child screams through the kitchen and my whispered repentance later
as I beg Him to make more of me. These walls have held late night laughter with
dear friends and early morning remorse over broken dreams. They’ve held
confessions and achievements and words, oh so many sweet words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The memories flood too quickly to contain them all.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see the night I came home and walked into this kitchen
defeated and without a 4 year old and sweet friends gathered around to make
super and their silence meant more than words.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see our first Thanksgiving here, mom pulling the stuffing
out of the oven, kids dancing happy and people – <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oh so many people – </i>who I love and so much joy spilling out of such
a small space.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see myself standing here in the wee morning hours that
shouldn’t even count as morning yet whisking high calorie milk for a child just
barely clinging to life and I hear my loud cry for Jesus to save Him.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I hear the pitter-patter of little feet over the bubbling of
the coffee pot and the excited voice of my littlest as she announces that the
chicks have “popped” in the first light of the morning, and I feel the way His
mercy has washed over me in this place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see hundreds of cooking lessons, little bodies crowded
around a big pot, eager for their chance to measure, to pour, to stir. I see
birthday cakes, so <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">so</i> many birthday
cakes frosted and decorated with butterflies and flowers. I see whole wheat
bread warm and rising in this oven, daily, and marvel at how He has been our
daily bread.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see the day when the full weight of her past threatened to
knock the breath right out of me, how I pressed my palms hard into these
counter tops and willed myself to keep breathing and questioned everything that
I knew to be true.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see the girls, gathered around the open computer screen
and hear the voices of my mother and father and brother streaming across space
and time zones and my heart aches with missing them but rejoices for love that
bridges even oceans.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I see people. Homeless mothers who have found their way to
better life here. Children who have healed and become whole here. Friends who
have found rest, family who have so greatly blessed, people I have loved,
who have loved me. People who have known the Lord in this place.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have set foster babies on these counters next to
casseroles for neighbors. And right here on these counters I have typed it all
out, our lives, the beautiful and the ugly, between the stirring of the pots
and the wiping of the noses, and the words turned to pages and the pages into a
story.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It’s almost too much this passing of time, the dying of
dreams and the budding of new ones, this growing of babies into children and
children into women and hearts to maturity. And I cry because I want to hold it
all forever, His goodness in this place. I run fingers over knife-worn counters
and time runs too fast. And people are sent out from here. People heading home
and people heading off to new futures and one day, these girls, too. I serve meals
in this kitchen but I want to serve them what counts. <i>I want to offer them the
living bread, the only food that truly fills.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I have laughed here, I have wept here, I have created here, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">oh, I have prayed here</i>. And here in this
place, I have known Him more. I haven’t always done it right and some days I
feel that I haven’t been enough, but I know that He has. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">He has</i>. Right above the oven are painted the words of Acts, “They
broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and generous hearts… and
the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved,” and I know it
like I know my own breath and the warmth of the sun on my skin, time passes,
and they will go, and only He will remain. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
My eyes find the trail of footprints leading to the door, and
through bated breath I ask it, beg it, “Lord, if I could have just one thing, could
I have served them <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">You</i>?”</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com108tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2695840511970883220.post-49019895993856383442012-10-25T22:06:00.000-07:002012-10-26T06:31:31.132-07:00<br />
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
Ever wonder what we are up to on a Saturday?</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<a href="http://www.amazimaministries.blogspot.com/">Come and see!</a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
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katiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03426837041067362644noreply@blogger.com24