sometimes, i think god cries.

when you were little did your parents ever tell you that when it rains, it is god crying?

i'm not sure that mine did. i always remembered them telling me that it was angels bowling when there was thunder. i think i made that evolve into the rain being the gingerale from their party. i was a strange child...although some could agree that not much has changed.

anyway. so, it's raining today and i can't help but think about the world. not just our world, but there is so much going on in our country right now, i can totally see how god would be crying.

1. there's a huge oil spill on the gulf coast that could destroy ecosystems. that would affect the entire world.
2. the state of arizona passed a terrible immigration law. it makes me sick.
3. i heard on the radio that 550 people have drowned in an attempt to cross a river trying to get to america. to have a better life. so, someone brought this to the city it is located in, and asked if they could put in buoys or rafts or something.  so that even if they do make it across, they don't die. if they have to send them back, let's do it alive.
4. there were bombs found in a car in times square. so close to me.
5. there is really bad flooding in nashville.
6. all of the people in boston without clean water right now.

that's not the extent of things in our country. those are just the BIG problems.

and then once we look outside the borders of america, wow. i mean, people are starving. there are earthquakes, volcanos, hurricanes, etc. women are being treated unfairly. children are being forced to work for next to nothing.

somewhere, there is a 22 year old female like myself farming, trying to take care of her children, and maybe wondering how she is going to provide dinner for her family. maybe she doesn't know how to read. she's probably never used a computer, and maybe has to keep her face covered simply because of her gender.

and i'm sitting in my air conditioned office with my macbook, drinking dunkin donuts coffee, awaiting a text message from my boyfriend, listening to music that i purchased and thinking how can this be?

where is god in all of this? how can god allow disaster to strike? why is sabitri in india starving?

i don't often listen to christian music, but there's a song called city on our knees by toby mac. i don't love the song, but i love this particular line:

through the fog there is hope in the distance
from cathedrals to third world missions
love will fall to the earth like a crashing wave. 


my prayers lately have been for god to show love to the world, kind of like that "god is love" song i posted a few weeks back.

let's continue praying for justice, peace, mercy, hope, and change.

shalom.

what if the tea party was black?

http://ephphatha-poetry.blogspot.com/2010/04/imagine-if-tea-party-was-black-tim-wise.html

this is important.

small girl in india :)

i love children.

this past weekend, my youth participated in a 24 hour famine where they went 24 hours without food to become aware of what it's like to be hungry. this is an event sponsored by world vision (they call it a 30 hour famine...we only did 24). what a powerful experience to hear that every seven seconds a child dies from hunger.

it made me want to do something about it.

i've been talking a lot about sponsoring a child lately. two of the blogs i follow are of people who are going with world vision to visit children that have sponsors...i was so inspired that this family with not a lot of money make sure to budget to sponsor eight children every month. to give them the opportunity to live a life that has clean water, health care, hygiene, medical checkups, etc.

so, matt and i talked about it recently and realized that if we gave up going out to dinner two or three times a month, we could sponsor a child instead.

today we took the plunge.

i'm honored to say that matt and i are the proud sponsors of Sabitri from India.  She is 11 months old and her birthday is two days after mine, which is pretty neat :)

wow. i'm just overcome by a sense of love and empowerment knowing by giving something up, i can take care of this baby who is on the other side of the world.

amazing. truly amazing.

please pray for her and for us as we embark on this journey.

:)

xoxo

god is love

i like this video. however, there is no use of gender neutral pronouns. oh well.

spin on classic easter egg hunt.

around a month ago, one of my youth asked me if we could have an easter egg hunt for youth group one sunday. i toyed with the idea and then when i realized i had nothing planned for 3/28, i was like, well, that'll be fun.

so, i was telling one of my volunteers about it, and he was all like "we should put bible verses in the eggs!" and i was like, yes, that's a great idea. keep jesus in easter. not just make it about chocolate eggs and bunny rabbits...i decide to buy the eggs and a bunch of candy...and suddenly i had an epiphany.

and what was it, you may ask? i decided to take the resurrection story from each of the four gospels, type out each verse and just put "John 20" or "Mark 16" with no verse numbers. and each verse from each of the four gospels got put in its own easter egg along with candy. once they found the eggs, all the bible verses then had to be put in order by gospel.

my middle schoolers were really into it. they had a blast and did a pretty good job. man, it's pretty difficult! the winning team got peeps. we then read them all out loud and talked about the differences between the stories. some of them really picked up on it.

it was a lot of fun. we did some hardcore egg hiding. we stuck some to the ceiling, hid them in trash cans, coat pockets, all over the church. i think there may still be one or two missing. we knew there were some missing if some of the verses from the gospel lessons were missing.

i had a GREAT turnout. i think it was the best other than the corn maze. 12 middle schoolers for the jr high group and 8 high schoolers. they all had a blast. i think we should do easter egg hunts every week.

the best part? me and my volunteer got a bit bored while stuffing the eggs for the sr. highs. so he was all like "i wish we had some vegetables...that would be funny." instead, we went and raided the fridge and found CROUTONS, sugar packets, and a creamer. it was hilarious. we put those items in around ten eggs (out of 80+). their reactions were priceless when they opened the eggs...especially the ones filled with BOTH chocolate eggs and croutons.  haha.

that was my easter adventure with my youth. i'm thinking it will be a yearly event...

hope you have a blessed easter...off to help with maundy thursday service.

peace.

confession.

i have a confession to make:

i am a prayer slacker. it's really hard for me to sit and focus on one thing for more than a minute. so, i often lift prayers up to god throughout the day, even if it's just a random thought like "man, those people in haiti...they need you god" or "wow, driving through this inner city neighborhood reminds me of how fortunate i am." you get the point.

i did join a prayer group at my church on monday mornings before i started seminary and we went through a book that discussed different kinds of prayer. it was really eye opening, and it introduced me to the labyrinth which i absolutely love as a method of prayer. we also discussed prayer walks, breath prayers, singing, etc etc.

i follow the blog of pastor pete wilson from cross point church in nashville (don't ask how i found it, i just randomly find things through the blog of matthew paul turner...

i've never been to cross point, but this pastor has great wisdom at times. today, he posted on prayer, and said this, as he found it in a book called The Me I Want to Be....I've never heard of it, but here's the nugget of wisdom:

When I pray, I end up praying about things I think I should be concerned about: missionaries, world peace and global warming. But my mind keeps wandering toward stuff I am genuinely concerned about. The way to let my talking flow into praying is this: I must pray what is in me, not what I wish were in me.

i like that. i tried to use this other book about contemplative prayer during lent, and that was a failure. it lasted for about two days. it wanted me to sit in silence for twenty minutes each day. needless to say, that didn't happen. HOWEVER. pete wilson also brought up the following book: Confessions of a Prayer Slacker by his friend Diane.


i think i should read this.

i confess, i am a prayer slacker.

health care reform

why i'm for it:

…Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my [God], inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

- Matthew 25:34-36