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A few weeks ago Shawn and I started watching a fantastic DVD series called Planet Earth.  It contains amazing photography and video footage of…well…earth.  Though the science behind it is of course evolution when talking about how long the earth had been around, but I have been completely humbled by the awesomeness of our creator.

As with most nature documentaries the “circle of life” was brought up and enter from backstage African Hunting Dogs hunting Impalas.  The Dogs stayed hidden, spying their prey, inching closer and closer till the most opportune time to strike.  They attacked the unsuspecting prey which of course ran for dear life.

Photo Credit

Photo Credit

The narrator explains that the African Hunting Dogs are the most efficient hunters in Africa, working as a team seeking to destroy.  Each dog breaking off simply to surround the hunted.

In the video the Impala’s only saving grace was jumping into a lake treading water while the African Hunting Dogs waited and then left to go sup on an Impala whose fortune was not so good.

As I watched this I could help but think of my own life.  I’m just sitting here minding my own business when out of no where I’m attacked.  And I’m running.

But where am I running.

What am I looking to, to be my saving grace?  Friends?  My husband?  A glass of wine?

I have noticed over the last couple weeks that when I ran to God, ran to His Word my attitude, my unbridled tongue got better.  The moment I stopped engulfing myself in the wisdom of the Bible and the teachings reminding me that my tongue is like the fires of Hell my attitude started going bad again.

I’m learning where to run.  To continuously allow myself to be engulfed by the Word of God.

Imagine…

Sometime in the future the US Government – including the majority both sides of the political aisle / including the president, no matter republican/conservative or democrat/liberal all agreeing – decides that the US has an over population problem.  They institute a law that says you can only have one child.  If you already have children by law you cannot have any more.  What would you do?

Now say you or your wife gets pregnant.  You already have children which have been grandfathered into being protected against the consequences of breaking the law.  What do you do?  Do you have the child and hide it like Moses mother hid him?  Taking the risk of being found out and facing huge fines, you & your spouse jail time leaving your children to the care of family or worse government protection and sustainment?  What would you do if your have one child and it’s a girl unable to carry on your family name, unable to provide for you and your spouse later in life?  Do you place them in an orphanage and hope for the best?  Do you go against every moral, righteous cell in your being and have an abortion or place them in a dark corner unfed to slowly die.  Or abandon them in the back alley, drown them in a river/lake?

What would you do?

This scenario and these images are graphic.  We can’t imagine the US moving in this direction.  We can’t imagine that a parent would do this to their child (often the mother being the one to commit the act).  However, this very act – abandoning, killing an infant – goes on this very day in our world.

Infanticide is currently practiced in China, India, and Africa. In urban populaces gender-selective abortion is practiced.  Choosing male children, aborting females.

Infanticide and gender-selective abortion are not talked about.  Are not brought to light in the eye of the public.  We may be aware it happens but do we really know?  Do we know that infant girls are drowned in rivers because having a boy is preferred for status within community, because having a daughter means expensive dowries in the future.    Because a son (in rural areas) can work to support you when you are too old to do so yourself.

In a discussion with Shawn on Sunday we talked about this.  I said that the practice of infanticide makes me angry, pisses me off.  He commented that I don’t get this angry about abortion.  And I don’t.  Abortion takes a life that hasn’t been born, while infanticide murders (blatantly) a child that has taken breath – which according to critics for abortion say is when life starts.  Don’t get me wrong I think abortion is wrong, I don’t support it at all.  But I think in this day and age abortion is a tired topic.  People on both sides of the argument have grown tired of the fight while not budging in their stance.  But like I said in the previous paragraph it just isn’t talked about.

Infanticide is often illegal, but still practiced.  There needs to be a voice for these girls, these children.

For your reference here are some links with more information:

Wiki – Infanticide Selective-Sex Abortion

Gendercide.Org

Disciple The Nations Alliance Part 1 /  Part 2

The Economist – The War on Baby Girls:  Gendercide

Update: I was turned onto these posts. Thanks to Elora.

Daily Mail – Gendercide 1 /   Gendercide 2

I’ve worn glasses since I was in the first or second grade.  Big, thick glasses.  Lenses that faded from dark to light depending on if I was in the sun.  Lenses with tri-color tinting cause in 1983 that was as cool as the perm my dad had.  The summer I turned 10 I had to start wearing contacts.  Hard ones.  I vividly remember taking them out for swim lessons at the city pool and then putting them back in.  The little pink zip pouch I kept my case and solution in.

I’m blind (literally legally).

I’m reminded of this every morning.  I wear a watch to bed so in the first light of morning I can squint at it to see the time.  I’m reminded every time I get lent, dust, eye goobers under my contacts.  I’m reminded of this every time I have to get an inch away from something to see it without my glasses or contacts.

My sister-in-law, Brie, works for a lasik center and is always nagging me that I should get lasik.  I’ve considered, seriously at times.  But a couple things always keep me from doing so.  One of those is fear.  My eyesight is already bad, if something goes wrong I’m seriously screwed.  Oh and even if your eyeball is “asleep” your brain still knows what’s going on.

I have another more important reason for not doing it.  More important to me.  I just believe it is something I’m not supposed to do.  I’ve not been able to see as long as I can remember.  I can’t recall any moment in my life where I could see without the aid of glasses or contacts – well maybe that day in Kindergarten where a classmate stole my milk money.

There will be a day I will see though!!

…and that is why I refuse.  One day I will blink, I will open my eyes first thing in the morning, I will open my eyes from prayer and the first thing I see without the use of outside sources will be the face of my Savior.  I will have healing.  I’m excited for that day.

——

There are somethings though, I refuse to be blind to anymore.  The hurting.  Those in poverty.  The outcast.  They say ignorance is bliss, but I don’t want to be blissful when it comes to the things that break God’s heart.  I want to be broken with eyes wide open.

I want to cry.

I want to see.

I don’t want to be ignorant.

And as a friend reminded me just now, I don’t want to forget.

If I proclaim the greatness of God it is hard to elevate myself.  If I speak of the works and majesty of God it is hard to speak of myself.

I will give to the Lord the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. – Psalm 7:17

When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him? – Psalm 8: 3 & 4

Preserve me, O God, for in you I take refuge. I say to the Lord, You are my Lord; I have no good apart from you. – Psalm 16:1 & 2

I love you, O Lord, my strength. – Psalm 18:1

O Lord, I love the habitation of your house and the place where your glory dwells. – Psalm 26:8

Ascribe to the Lord, O heavenly beings, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due his name; worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness. – Psalm 29:1 & 2

Blessed be the Lord, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city. – Psalm 31:21

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. – Psalm 103:1-5

(All passages ESV)

I was relistening to a message yesterday on my way to work.  In short the message is about being uncomfortable and using the gifts God has given you.  It is an amazing message and like I said I was driven to listen to it a second time which will probably turn into a third and fourth.  With all my thoughts of uncomfortableness lately messages like this drive it home and make me think.

As I was listening I realized that one of the first things I have to give up in my desire to be uncomfortable is my pride, and in my pride my selfishness.  My pride and selfishness will only hinder what God wants to do.  They will be roadblocks preventing me from even taking a step.

If I want to do one single thing for God, I have to be taken out of the equation.  A vessel is just that…a vessel.  An empty subject ready to be used by its owner.

What is it that causes a 19 year old girl to pack up everything and move to South Africa?  Or a young woman to move to Uganda to be a Kindergarten teacher, only to have God move her to start an orphan child sponsorship program?  Or a man who when visiting South Korea was heart broken for the orphans and would start an organization that would change the lives of over a million children in third world nations?

For a few weeks now God has been laying on my heart that He wants me to be uncomfortable.  It is like that nagging little tickle in the back of your throat, seemingly always there.  The thing is, is that I WANT to be uncomfortable.  I’ve lived nearly 35 years worth of life being comfortable in church and not doing anything.  I want to change.  I want to make an impact on the world that God has placed me in.

­That – means I must be uncomfortable.

I’ve never been to Africa or South Korea but I’m pretty sure it isn’t comfortable to live or serve in a Christian ministry there.  It sure isn’t comfortable riding 3100 miles on a hard, skinny bike seat to raise money for Blood Water Mission – in the middle of summer – through PHOENIX.  Or smelling the constant reminder of death in Haiti as you dig through hundreds of pounds of concrete.

I realized yesterday that being uncomfortable is a hard thing to do (insert obligatory, “yeah duh” here).  But for me it isn’t the being uncomfortable, it’s the getting there.  Like I mentioned above I’ve had nearly 35 years worth of being comfortable.  My parents weren’t the type to live life spiritually uncomfortable.  We went to church, taught Sunday school, taught VBS day in day out.  That was my life growing up.  Now as of about a year or so ago God’s breaking the mold that has been my existence.  He’s given me a heart for the poor.  He’s made me to fall in love with India and long to see justice for the 50 million plus living in her slums.

I am praying now, with more fervor that God would continue to make me uncomfortable.  It is one of those prayers like praying for patience or humility.  It doesn’t come easily or without cost.  The end result though will be beautiful and for the glory of God alone.

I have felt so helpless lately.  It started a while ago seeing images of precious people living on nothing just trying to get by.

It came roaring at me two weeks ago with the earthquake in Haiti.  The images of poverty stricken, broken people floated before my eyes.  I didn’t close the websites or stop reading the Tweets because I wanted to look.

I wanted to be broken over these people.

Last Sunday at church God literally wrecked me.  Our pastor decided to forgo communion after the teaching and allow people to pray for Haiti while worship was led.  We watched this video done by Pastors Mark Driscoll & James McDonald who went to Haiti to help churches just days after the earthquake.  Within seconds of the video starting I was crying.  I hadn’t cried for Haiti yet.  All I could do the rest of the service was cry and plead to God to save:  spiritually and physically.

It isn’t just Haiti though.  It’s all children and families that are in devastating poverty.  That is what breaks my heart.  I want to argue with God and ask Him why are you allowing this to happen to your creation.  Why are you allowing the flesh and blood you wove together to be eaten away by diseases and malnutrition?

Today Shawn showed me pictures that Tony Morgan Tweeted from his trip to Burkina Faso through Compassion.  All I wanted to do besides cry for these children, was bring them into my home and take care of them.  Love them.

I know it isn’t an accident that God has placed these feelings in my heart.  I’ve pleaded with Him over and over to break my heart for the things that break His.  This is an answer to prayer.  Yet, I still feel so helpless.  We sponsor our precious, beautiful little Nikita in India and fully plan on sponsoring more in the future.  Yet, I still feel so helpless.  I pray.  We donate to Haiti, and yet…  I feel like there is so much more I could do and don’t know how or what.

I just want to be open to what He has for Shawn and I.  I guess my feeling helpless means I just lean on Him all that much more and He’ll be the work in me that moves my hands the way they need to be moved.

In the light of tragedies we always seem to understand just how blessed we are by God.  My heart has been exceptionally thankful lately.  Last night we had a tremendous storm here in Phoenix.  We got an inch of rain over night.  As I got ready for bed I listened to the downpour that was occurring and could only thank God that I have a house with four walls and roof that doesn’t leak.  I wasn’t out on the street trying to find a semi dry, warm place to sleep.  I was about to crawl into my dry comfy bed with four layers of blankets.  I haven’t lost everything that was really nothing to begin with.  We are blessed.

Take away the superficial stuff your thankful for.  When you get down to the nitty gritty what does your heart cry out to God in praises of thanksgiving?

Here are some of mine:

1.  My salvation and the undeserved grace and mercy God has given me.

2.  I have a home.  Thousands don’t have a place to sleep at night except a dirty corner in the street (if they’re lucky).

3.  I have a job.  Again many don’t.  I’ve been blessed with a job I really like.  My co-workers can drive me batty but that’s part of having a job.

4.  My husband.  After nearly nine years (in May) of marriage my husband loves my more than he did nine years ago.  With all my faults, my car accidents, my yelling at him it is apparent he’s fallen more in love with me and I with him.

Your turn…

Psalm 138:1 – 3 (NLT)

I give you thanks, O Lord , with all my heart;
I will sing your praises before the gods.
I bow before your holy Temple as I worship.
I praise your name for your unfailing love and faithfulness;
for your promises are backed
by all the honor of your name.
As soon as I pray, you answer me;
you encourage me by giving me strength.

When I logged onto my computer at work this morning I read this headline for this story on the BBC feed I use Haiti Quake Toll May Be 200,000.  My heart just breaks.  It cries out for God’s mercy.

Last night I was praying for our little girl Nikita in India, and the people in Haiti.  Both India and Haiti are amongst the poorest in the world.  Haiti being the poorest in the Western Hemisphere, and India having the largest concentration of poor in the world.  This utterly breaks my heart.  I began asking God to save and come quickly.  I am becoming more and more aware of the effects of sin on our world and our own selves.  In Genesis 3 man fell from the grace of God.  Sin entered the world and all that was in it and on it became cursed.  I long for the day with great anticipation when Jesus returns.  When sin and it’s effects are no more.

In the mean time all we can do is serve God, which includes others; and pray and give.  As I said in my last post I do not wish that you would give lightheartedly.  To treat it as the easy way out.  The truth of the matter is these people need Jesus more than they need money.  It seems like a harsh thing to say, but I’d rather die homeless in a gutter and have been saved by Jesus, then to die in a mansion and never know Him.

If God leads you to give then do it.  Don’t hesitate.  And pray, unceasingly.  My husband and I gave through Compassion Intl.  You can donate by clicking the Help Haiti image below.

For whatever you do thank you.

Today we are all reeling from the devastating earthquake in Haiti.  Thanks to technology images float in front of our eyes of the hurt, dead, and demolished.

The country and her people obviously need prayer and financial support.  Their lives have been stripped of the little they had to absolute nothingness.  I started thinking how exactly do you pray in situations like this?  It’s a little late to ask God to intervene and not allow the earthquake to happen.  I know to pray for comfort for those who’ve lost loved ones.  That those who are alive still would be found quickly.  But how else should one pray?

As I was writing this the thought passed of which is easier?  To give financially or to pray?  I was reminded of the story where Jesus forgave the lame man of his sins and the Pharisees accused Him of blasphemy.  Jesus said which is easier?  For me to say your sins are forgiven or get up, pick up your mat and walk.  Jesus was saying it’d be much easier for me to just heal him, but I’m the Son of God.  I think for some it is easier to just send $50 to a relief organization and call it done.  Please don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying you shouldn’t give.  As Christians we are called to care of the widows, orphans, and the poor.  What I’m saying is evaluate your heart.  Ask God to break your heart for these people.  Pray for them in whatever way God leads you.

I would also ask you to consider once the dust has settled so to speak to pray about sponsoring a child through Compassion International whether in Haiti or elsewhere.

Transparency:  Five years ago when the tsunami hit Indonesia I was in a completely different place in my faith than I am now.  Since then God has shattered my heart for those in poverty.  I regret the attitude I had back then, and am now grateful that God daily teaches me how to love like Him.