Category: Community (Page 2 of 2)

“You is kind. You is smart. You is important.” – Kathryn Stockett, The Help

Most Mondays I have the joy of helping first graders practice their sight words. When I’m distracted by my task list, work projects, or texts, I go through the motions, focusing only on sight words. When I remind myself to slow down I step onto sacred ground.

The sacred ground of life experienced with eyes wide open.

In this case, little monkeys who need a reminder of their GREAT worth.

Like the girl who transferred from another school. Whenever I applaud her for sailing through her sight words she’s quick to remind me that she was held back when she came to our school. This, my dear friends, is an opportunity.

Speak truth. Speak hope. Speak identity.

Or the boy who is socially awkward and struggling, oh so struggling, to read. The deck is stacked against him. He needs a reminder of his precious worth.

“You is smart. You is important.”

Trees may not reflect the season changes in my warm, California community, but youth sports certainly do. Soccer to basketball to baseball.

Tryouts and registration mark the start of each season. And the air becomes filled with questions and conversation. Who will make which team? Who’s the best coach? Who’s the best trainer? Which club sent players to the most prestigious colleges? 

Since our kids were toddlers Jason and I have agreed that we will assess our schooling choices every year for each kid. Are they thriving? Are adjustments needed? Are we serving well? Questions like these help us engage our school community with eyes wide open.

I’ve felt the Holy Spirit nudge us towards the same practice with youth sports. Sure we might talk players and stats, but the eyes wide open questions shift our attention towards the hearts of those around us. Who can we spend time with? Who needs a word of encouragement? Who’s having a hard week? Remember to smile. Remember to practice patience. Be kind.

If you read Push then you know I’m competitive. I want my kids (and their teammates) to kill it on the field. Eyes wide open questions challenge my perspective. They force me to slow down and pay attention.

I love meeting my Good Dad in the eyes wide open spaces. There he invites me to anchor into who he says he is, who he says I am, and the great worth of the adults and kids around me.

Engaging life with eyes wide open isn’t easy. It takes intention and practice.

And I often miss the mark.

Just a couple weeks ago I was driving through a part of town known for the homeless people who stand at nearly every corner. As I waited to make a u-turn my eyes caught sight of a gentlemen walking the median strip to the left of my car. He moved with a severe limp. His arms and legs were twisted. His neck, face, and bald head were badly scarred; it looked like he had lived through a fire. My stomach churned. When I rolled down my window to hand him money I forced myself to look him in the eye and call him sir. I couldn’t understand his response. Then the light changed and I moved on.

I was proud of myself for engaging with him.

Then I felt the Spirit invite me to open my eyes.

More than money this man needed meaningful human contact. When was the last time someone had a real conversation with him? When was the last time someone treated him as an equal? 

Before Kathryn Stockett ever wrote “You is kind. You is smart. You is important” my Good Dad was breathing hope and truth and life over people.

How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! – 1 John 3:1

The very hairs on your head are numbered. You are incredibly valuable! – Luke 12:7

My hope comes from him. He is my mighty rock. Pour out your hearts to him, for God is our refuge. – Psalm 62:5-8

Where do you need to practice opening your eyes a little wider?  Will you allow God to meet you in the eyes wide open spaces?

– Laura

To know her is to be inspired. Like many college seniors  Brittany Attwood is seeking God about what is next for her life.  However, Brittany’s story is unique from her peers in that she knows what it is to live with suffering. She was born with Spastic Cerebral Palsy and has lived through various surgeries and chronic pain her whole life, but that is not what defines her.  God has given her a passion for orphan care and four years ago she began to dream of traveling to Haiti. With the limitations of her physical condition it looked like an impossible dream.  UNTIL…God made a way where there seemed to be no way and this radiant daughter courageously obeyed.

When I was seven, I remember being in class during an art lesson where we were told to make art worthy of placing on the fridge at home. To start the project, the docent handed us all a black sheet of construction paper with one direction: draw a picture. I remember grabbing all the beautiful colors out of the crayon box and starting in on my flower with vigor. After about thirty seconds of coloring with robin’s egg blue though, I realized there was one large problem: it wasn’t showing up. What my young self didn’t know at the time, was that only if I used the white crayon, would a picture become visible.

I would suggest today that our courage to pursue God functions much like a white crayon. It’s unique, under-appreciated, and the fruits of its labor are hard to see if not pressed up against the blackness- a  life of embracing struggle, yet running towards His opportunities.

To give a little background on myself, I was born a twin with a disability called Spastic Cerebral Palsy. I’ve always understood the depths and shades of suffering. However,  my form of this disability graciously only wreaks havoc on my physical body and not my mental faculties.

I grew up in a non-Christian home where the name “God” wasn’t introduced into my vocabulary at all until my neighbors started taking me to church in middle school. Not to mention, I don’t take lightly the opportunity of life as I’ve gone to more funerals  (including my 47 year old mom’s just five years ago) than there are eggs in a carton.

In summary: my autobiography is strewn with stories of how the paper of my life has only continued to blacken as a result of hardship…yet I find such joy in God’s story, knowing that if I choose, a white crayon can come and make it a masterpiece.

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going.”-Hebrews 11:8

Ready for this?

I recently returned from a missions trip to Carrefour, Haiti.

             Did you catch that? Me. The disabled, (might I add fresh out of surgery), English-speaking me. Miraculous.

You see, when I originally applied for the trip, I was using a four-wheeled walker, attempting to recover from a sudden surgery to the hip, and out of a job. Haiti seemed not only to be out of the question, but down right delusional. Not to mention I had tried this whole, “respond to obedience and go to Haiti” thing before, and yet God shut it down and decided to give me this surgery. This turn of events left me both questioning if I had even heard HIs voice and then crying as I had never had the day my team left for the airport without me.

Three months later God placed Haiti on my heart again and I wanted to bolt out of there. To be asked to expose my heart to the possibility of it breaking a second time was terrifying. Long story short: God confirmed that despite my fear and the opinion of others, there was no escape route, and I had to protect this call He gave me.

Getting me to Haiti required a million little courageous steps, but the masterpiece revealed itself the moment I stepped on Haitian soil. Every second I spent in Haiti was a glorious reveal of just how wide and great the beauty and power of our God is. I endured moments of weakness there too of course, but I needed no more validation of my heart for orphan care and Haiti once I arrived.

In Haiti, I was home. I was ready to learn from my teachers there who, just as I, felt more of God’s joy during the moments where the world would say we were “suffering”. Haiti was God’s marvelous masterpiece for me- the culmination and redemption of four years of dreaming and overcoming.

Being home now, I’m realizing that God doesn’t want to just give me one white crayoned masterpiece of courage; He wants me to have a life full of them. Since returning from the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, I realize my relationship with Haiti is forever because :

Haiti is teaching me how to live.

I fully submitted myself on that trip, knowing that if God got me there I didn’t want to miss anything else He had planned.  When I returned nothing changed, and yet everything did. I was begging for more of Him. After three weeks of prayer and testing what I heard, I knew God was asking me to give him my courage and control in literally everything even with still not having a job and not knowing what the future holds.

The Type A, control freak in me is still shaking in fear, but I’m obeying. I’ve downsized my possessions, which I’m ashamed to say made me look like I had a family of four. I’m trusting God with my finances, knowing that I’m only now earning the exact amount to pay my bills and tithe…not a penny over. It’s a scary place–to stand with courage through obedience. Everything is changing.

Sometimes He simply asks me to love on a professor, and sometimes He asks me to give my jacket to a homeless little girl right on the spot. It’s a permanent lifestyle change, and my flesh doesn’t like it.

  Nevertheless, don’t minimize the value of the final masterpiece. 

So what are the white crayons in your life? Where can you choose to pick up the white, unused crayon- instead of your worn down crayons of control- and trust that the masterpiece of your fear, pain, and triumph will show more of God’s beauty?  I promise the pictures our God draws are more than fridge worthy.