Sunday, August 26, 2012

To Give Thanks

Scripture tells us in John 3:27 that no man receives anything unless it's given to him from above. And you start to realize in these little things: My life could look a lot different today. And all of these little things, they are gifts. -Ann Voskamp
Grace.

It's this subtle little thing. And it's this crazy thing to perceive; it gives what you don't deserve.

And if you're not careful, you'll miss it.

Grace, all this grace, in all of its abundance... So easy to miss.

But then what do you deserve?

Tell me what you deserve. And anything that you have above that is grace and you know what I deserve?

Nothing.

Truth is, I don't even deserve life.

So guess what? All is grace.

Everything. Not just the good, not just the happy.

All.

The failure. The success. The health and the sickness, the loss and the gain. All is grace.

What does this mean? 

It means that not even winning one game at my basketball tournament is grace. It means that the simple, everyday, that is grace. It means that the accomplishment of getting my newly-short hair into a messy bun, I should be turning upwards to give thanks for that too. It means screaming two-year-olds and escaping three-year-olds at Sunday School are a gift straight from heaven. It means the bed I sleep on and the blanket I sleep under and the water I drink and even the steps I take today... All grace.

And when I start to say thank-you, those two words taught from birth, I realize how full of grace my life is.

And I realize I've missed it. I've missed all this everyday grace and how did that happen?

When you look at all this grace stacked up in your life you think maybe I could give some of this away? 

We've been blessed to bless.

And oh, the abundance we find when we find all the grace filling our life, and the purpose of that grace.

Filled to be emptied... to be poured out.



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So pretty much all of this blog post was inspired by Ann Voskamp... check her out?

She writes about, speaks about and lives out this idea of thanks-living.

Will you live thanks? Have you realized how much grace you have? 


Online giving is now up and you can support the cause behind Eucharisteo: A Celebration of Joy without trekking over here. Click here to give. :)

And if Toronto isn't too much of a trek for you, I'd love to see you at the concert! Ann will be speaking at the event. You can purchase tickets here.

Thank you!

Monday, August 20, 2012

A Whole Bunch of Stuff

Well... I have a whole lotta stuff to share/ask/write about and not nearly enough time, so let's get down to it! :)

1. One of my dear bloggy friends Hannah launched her new blog today! It's brand spanking new so me thinks you should go over and help her get all settled in by saying hello! Check it out: www.anewfoundvision.com. :)

2. Remember when I told y'all about Eucharisteo: A Celebration of Joy? It's one month and nine days away! Can I ask you guys a few favours as September 29 creeps up on us? 

First off, consider this your official invitation to attend the concert! You can buy tickets here for $20 plus a itty bitty processing fee and 100% of your $20 goes to build a Compassion Child Development Centre in Masbate, Philippines. And you get to hear some pretty awesome music. And oh yeah, Ann Voskamp is speaking {no big deal, right? ;)}! It's a pretty sweet deal if you ask me! :)

Now, I know most of you don't live anywhere near Toronto, so there's no way you can attend. You can still help! 

We have this blog button you can grab to help spread the word. Maybe you consider including on your blog or in a post? We'd so appreciate that! :) You can grab it here:

Eucharisteo: A Celebration of Joy 

Or perhaps you don't have a blog... But you MUST have Facebook, right? ;) Invite all your Torontonian friends to come using the event page!

And lastly, if you feel so led, do you think you might wanna donate to the project? If you do, go to the bottom of this page for instructions on how you can do so. :) Also, rumour has it that sometime in the next week a online giving system could appear... Stay tuned! ;)

If you decide to do any of the above, from the bottom of my heart: thank you. I know Florianlyn and all the other kids at PH973 appreciate it. You're bringing us one step closer to $30,000. :)

3. Um, oh yeah, school.

I'm gonna be totally honest here, I'm going to enjoy my last 15 days of summer, but I'm actually really excited for the school year to start. I'm a girl that likes things to do and people to see. And when I have nothing to do... Things go crazy. Like I come up with blog posts like this, this and this. ;)

In all seriousness, I'm stoked for everything happening in the fall, the concert being only one of those things. I'm sure once I'm in the middle of all that stuff though, I'll totally be like, "Why. Was I. Excited. For this." ;)

4. I'm in love with this song lately, along with the song on the end of my last blog post:



Isn't it awesome? :)

Well, that's all for now! Have an awesome week and do something world-changing! :)

Thursday, August 16, 2012

A Slow Death That You Don't Have to Die

It haunts me.

The rich young ruler.

He went away sad, because he had great wealth.

Why?

Why did he do that? He took the temporary over the eternal?

I ask, I wonder, but I know the answer.

I know why, because I live on the border of his heart everyday. I dangerously teeter over the edge of choosing the temporary.

But I cling to a promise and I know it's possible, I know it's better, to accept Jesus' offer.

And so it haunts me. I found it... I might struggle to live it sometimes, but I found it. An average teenage girl from Canada.

Why didn't the rich young ruler find it, that promise?

And I live in a world of rich young rulers not all of them young and not all of them rulers but they're all rich.

How wealth blinds us. How it torments us, enslaves us, impoverishes us.

And I wonder how close am I? And I look around and I realize I'm very close because people who have the same thing as me under "Religion" on Facebook don't live hungry for His righteousness. They live the rich young ruler's life and I realize how close I really am and I must be conscious. I must stay alive and not fall into the life of the living dead that is so easily fallen into.

It haunts me.

So here's the truth.

Some days, I have no more thought out words or patient smiles or grace. And all I want to do is make a list of every living-dead person I know, every rich young ruler, and just go down the list and shake them. And tell them about the promise. Yell it if I have to.

But I don't.

And I realize I have to trust God's grace because he's the only one who raises the dead but it's so hard.

It's watching people die away. And all you do is whisper a prayer.

Lord, heal them.

Heal me.

Tuesday, August 14, 2012

Hungry and Thirsty

Y'all might be wondering why the Beatitudes keep showing up on my blog lately... That's cuz at church we're doing a pretty awesome teaching series on the Beatitudes. Check it out.

This is definitely my favourite beatitude.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled. -Matthew 5:6

Hungry and thirsty.

I've seen that.




And filled.

I've seen that, too.

I live in that. 

People fill restaurants and restaurants fill people until the people fill gyms. And gyms empty people so they fill the restaurants again to get filled again but they're still not full.

So they fill their houses with TVs and couches and beds and they fill their animals too, until pets are obese while children starve but they're still not full.

So they fill their lives with things to do and people to see and events to attend and maybe even charities to support but they're still. not. full.

It's a trap so easily fallen into here at home. Here in North America where the American Dream lurks in every corner as an unrecognized temptation.

And then there's the hungry. 

How did Jesus know to use those words? Hungry and thirsty. Not yearning or wanting, because the rich do that too. He used words associated with the poor. 

Maybe because he wants us, the rich, to associate with the poor. With the hungry and the thirsty.

To learn from their faith. The hungry faith. The faith that prays, "I don't have enough. Father, be my enough."

The hungry aren't filled with worldly things. They have room for His righteousness.

And maybe that's the curse of the First World. We don't have room and we don't want to make room because His righteousness takes up a lot of space. Like, everything.

And who would want to give up everything? Who would want to willingly be hungry?

But Jesus asks us to do it. To give up the Dream. To detach from the stuff and the pleasure and the comfort. 


But he made a promise.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.

They will be filled. It's a promise.

If you give it all up, if you let yourself be hungry for His righteousness, He will fill you.

Promise.

And he never breaks his promises.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012

10 Reasons to Sponsor a Compassion Child

Me and the fam are south of the border this weekend, so check out this post from the archives!


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So I've told you all about my sponsored children a bit, but I've never really told you why you should sponsor a child for yourself. So here it goes...

10 Reasons to Sponsor a Compassion Child

1. You not only change this one kid's life, you begin to break the poverty cycle. These kids get to go to school. Once they have an education, your sponsored child will go way farther in life. It begins to break the poverty cycle, because your child will be able to get a job with their education.
2. You need them just as much as they need you. Praying for you child, hearing from them, writing to them, it moves you. It brings you closer to God. You grow and learn by sponsoring a child.
3. It's just plain fun. Writing to your child is so much fun. Plus, you have to get creative with how to send them cool little gifts, because you can only send flat, paper items in the mail. Stickers, colouring pages, book marks, origami and pictures and always good.
4. You're also helping your child's family. It's not just helping the child, but the family too. Who knows? Your child parents or siblings could come to know Christ through your sponsorship. Parents will write to you telling you how much you've helped them.
5. Family time! Sponsor a child as a family, then write to them as a family. It's a great way to bring your family together.
6. No better time to learn you geography and about foreign cultures! :) You'll learn lots about Haiti, the Philippines, Guatemala, Burkina Faso, Honduras or whatever country you child's from! :)
7. No better excuse for a trip to [insert way-cool country's name here] than to visit you Compassion child! Guess what??!! My family gets to meet Florianlyn this summer!!! So. Excited.
8. "I'm starving." That's a North American expression for "I haven't eating in a few hours." But seriously, we don't even know starving compared to these kids.
9. Who can resist those adorable faces?
10. It just plain rocks to sponsor a child. 'Nuff said.

So, I've given you ten reasons to sponsor a child, so go on over to www.compassion.ca, www.compassion.com or whatever the site is for your country, and sponsor a child!!! How about her? Or him? Or how about this adorable little boy? This girl? They're all waiting for a sponsor and you're the perfect one for this amazing, humbling, life-changing job! :)

Thanks for reading! :)

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Compassion's LDP

I'm south of the border this week, so we go to the archives! ;)

One year ago today, we met Rochelle our (soon-to-be, at the time) LDP student. It was an eye-opening day of breaking. Remembering today with this post.

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Heard of Comapssion's Leadership Development Program? It's awesome. :)

Let me introduce you to three girls: Anna, Rochelle and another girl, who I only spoke to for a brief moment, so her name has escaped me. But let's just call her Lily.

First let me tell you about Anna. She lives in Manila, but she's not from Manila and her family doesn't live there. Anna had to drop out of school at the age of 12 because her family could no longer pay for her schooling. So she just helped in the farm. At the age of 17, she left home to go to Manila to work as a maid, where she makes PHP3000 (about $65) a month to send home to her family. She rarely goes home. She quit school, but she's now working to pay for her younger brother to go to school. She's now 21 years old, and it seems that her only future is to continue working as a maid.

Poverty. Hopelessness. Emptiness.

Now, let me tell you about Rochelle, who I briefly blogged about before the trip. She's 18 years old and awaiting sponsorship in the LDP program. She's studying at the same school that my dad did! :) We met her yesterday:

[Enjoying some Halo-Halo - A Filipino dessert. :)]

We visited her at her church and Compassion program that she grew up in, where she's now a assistant teacher [She's studying education! :)]. She's really sweet and a great person. :)

Then we visited her house.

You can't stand up straight in her house.

She lives in what I would call a slum.

She calls it home.

It was probably the most shocking thing I've seen since I arrived in the Philippines. She, her 4 sisters and their mom and dad live in this house that is basically unlivable. Walking to the house, I had to sidestep sewage water, dead animals and much more. Rochelle told me that when it rains [and it's rainy season, it rains alot!] her house floods. They rent a small room upstairs for when this happens. I can't even imagine.

But because of Compassion's LDP, there is hope. She can become a teacher when she's done school, and live a better life than this. Help her family. Help others.

Which is why my family has decided to sponsor her! :)

I can't wait to begin exchanging letters with her! :D

And lastly, let me tell you about Lily. We met her right after talking to Anna. Lily is working in Manila's Compassion office. She's an LDP graduate, 22 years old, one year older than Anna. Such contrast between her life and Anna's. She has a bright future.

What a contrast between the future of Lily and Rochelle compared to Anna's.

What a difference LDP makes.


Make a Jesus-Difference, Give Hope: www.compassion.ca
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