Please (don't just say) Thank You

Certainly there are a million things to be thankful for. As Christians and non-Christians. As Americans and as people from anywhere else. So don't get me wrong, having a day to celebrate family and all of life's blessings is great. So long as you don't forget to do that everyday. But here is my challenge and my urgent prayer for myself and my family and for you and yours: do something about it. You're thankful for your faith, family, friends, a comfortable home, health, food, pets, a job, your school, your sport, etc.? Please, please, please remember this Thanksgiving that there are people without. Be overly thankful everyday for all of the blessings in your life because God has given you everything and there are people half way across the world and people in your neighborhood who don't have as much. But don't ever stop at just being thankful. Let your gratitude fuel a desire in you to help. Let Jesus fuel a desire in you to care for His lambs. Please. Whether it be relentless and faithful prayer for people who are suffering and barely getting by, or hands on volunteer work, or giving anything you can to help.  Whatever it may be, ask God to show it to you. And then do it. There's no reason not to. Thank you for reading. We love you a lot. Say thank you to Jesus. Then wash His feet.

I Miss Dirt and God Is Good At Loving

So I'm embarrassed to tell you this but I'm going to because it's important. I'm embarrassed because I just now had a realization I should've had a long time ago. But before my realization will make sense I must tell you something very personal about myself. I bare an immense burden. It's the most beautiful burden I can imagine having and I thank God that he allows me to carry it. God has given me a heart for poverty stricken people and for whatever that specifically means for an individual's life. I see videos and pictures and I carry memories of dirt roads, and schools with dirt floors, and homes entirely made from dirt and I weep tears of utter joy. My body aches with longing to be amongst those people, to be in the dirt. I'm physically affected by the amount of love I have for people I've never met. I don't tell you this for my own pride, please don't take it that way. Believe me I've abused this God given, beautiful burden time after time. I tell you this to tell you something greater. Something that points to Jesus. 

Tonight, like so many others, I went through a process of so many emotions felt for people who live in this condition. I realized that I was sitting there overwhelmed because I felt that I needed to somehow 'fix' it. That it was up to me to 'save' them. How ridiculous. If I so firmly believe in a God who provides me with every single thing that I have, why would I worry that he not do the same for others? If I trust that the living God is a good, good Father, why would I limit Him? I constantly have to remind myself how much more He loves His people. I can't even fathom how His heart must break daily for us. How He must ache to help us. How He must ache with love for us. I have to trust His goodness and I have to trust that He knows. That's it. 

-Mary