Compassion Birthday Love

October is birthday month for my two Compassion kiddos.

By total coincidence, these two kids' birthdays are 6 days apart.

This is the 4th time I'm celebrating Happyness' birthday as her sponsor and I really can't believe it. Yeah, I had a little nostalgic Compassion big sister moment last week.

But seriously guys, remember when she was this adorable little 4-year-old with the cutest pink outfit and beads in her hair? 

We've both come a long way. 

For reference, here's what my Facebook profile picture looked like around the same time. Braces and all.

circa summer 2011

As for Johnrel, it's been just under a year since I sponsored this adorable little guy from the community where oceans rise. My sponsorship of Johnrel has been instrumental over the past year in learning more about my role in God's story of redemption for our broken world. 

Happy, happy birthday to these two precious kids. 

They have impacted my life and strengthened my faith in incredible ways.

And on that note... Birthdays are a GREAT way to connect with or choose a Compassion child. 

Both my little bro and my mama share birthdays with two of our kids... Jon shares a birthday with Bell Bradley from Haiti, and my mama shares a birthday with her long-searched-for birthday buddy, Maria from Ecuador.

Would you consider sponsoring a child? You can search for a child based on their birthday and see if a child somewhere on the other side of the globe shares your special day. Or choose a child who is celebrating a birthday over the next couple months... and be the greatest birthday gift ever.

Compassion's sponsorship model is about so much more than giving $41/month. Sponsoring a child with Compassion pulls us out of our comfortable worlds to reach across the globe to a child who becomes a part of our family... A child who you pray for and care for, a child whose letters you can't wait to receive and whose birthday you celebrate with joy. 

This is some amazing stuff, and I can't wait for you to discover what joy sponsoring a Compassion child can bring.

When A Writer Goes To A Taylor Swift Concert

I have many respectable and ambitious things on my bucket list.

And then there's the thing I got to cross off last Friday night.

breathe the same air as taylor - check. ✔️ THIS WAS SO FUN even though I'm a horrible scream-singer (no seriously), and yeah, @taylorswift is sort of really cool. she can put on a pretty good show. ;) thanks mom&dad for an amazing grad gift!!

A photo posted by alyssa (@_godsgal4ever) on Oct 2, 2015 at 10:51pm PDT

Yeah, I went to see Taylor.

And guys, it was a lot of fun. 

I write about a lot of heavy stuff around here, but what you might not know from a random peruse of my blog is that I know pretty much every TSwift lyric there is to know. Just keeping it real.

But of course the writer in me almost always sees a blog post or at least some sort of analogy coming together before my eyes, even at the 1989 World Tour.

You see, every concert-goer had a wristband taped to their seat and waiting for them upon arrival. And these wristbands were, by some technological innovation, somehow connected to Taylor's every move. Coordinated with every beat and lyric, these wristbands turned the entire stadium and each individual concert-goer into a twinkling and colourful part of the ambience and lighting of the show.

It was pretty cool.

And you know, if you just looked down on your own individual wristband, you would find it just randomly turning on and off and changing colours. Not making much sense at all.

You might think it was broken, or be curious as to why it wasn't shining for longer than it did.

But then, you look up and realize this little wristband of yours is part of this bigger picture, blinking and shining at seemingly random times along with fifty thousand others to create a sparkling show of wonder.

And so this is my cheesy little analogy from going to my first Taylor Swift concert...

You might not be sure why life is the way it is right now. You wonder why the light is shut off and why it has been for what seems like forever.

But the reality and hope is this: We are part of this bigger picture called the Body of Christ.

And our story is just one part of God's story of redemption for this world.

So if you're in the dark, wondering what's next, take heart and know and trust that He has got this covered.

And yeah, when it comes time to shine?

Shine, and shine brightly.