Compassion!

I have probably not mentioned this blog very often, but I know there are many who have already read her story. She had a daughter 3 months after Larson was born...who had a fatal condition that was diagnosed at 20 weeks...and died after a beautiful 2 hours. If you haven't read her ....I encourage you to do so. She is honest, frank and LOVES the Lord!

Right now...she is overseas on a Compassion International trip with several other people...Compassion International is an AMAZING organization....This is the description from their website!

Compassion International is one of the nation's largest Christian child sponsorship organizations, working with more than 65 denominations and thousands of indigenous church partners in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, and the Caribbean. Since 1952, Compassion's revolutionary approach, through one-to-one Christian child sponsorship, has touched the lives of more than 1.8 million children. Compassion has been recognized for its financial integrity with top ratings and recommendations by several "watchdog" organizations. Sponsor a child in need today.

After reading about them...I decided to also look up the work Compassion in the Websters Dictionary. This is no ordinary dictionary....This is our AMERICAN DICTIONARY!!
It very simple yet directly states that Compassion means:

sympathetic consciousness of others' distress together with a desire to alleviate it

I had to ask myself..as an American, a child of God...what am I doing to be conscious of others' distress and how am I helping to alleviate it? God says in his word;
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world. -James 1:27

Compassion International in no way takes away all of my responsibility, I know there are many other ways to help these children around the world. But honestly....what is $32 dollars in many of our pockets..
A month without Starbucks?
Not going to a movie?
Not getting that extra pedicure?
Not going out to eat as much?
Budgeting $32 less in groceries?
Not going to Red Robin!!!


I know my children can learn alot from saving their own money...maybe not all of it yet...and then gifting it to someone else. So can we as adults. So I just felt compelled to write this on my blog. Check out the site....I hope you will be as moved as I am. If you can't "adopt" a child now, or maybe you can only do one, or maybe you can have a friend join in, maybe you can in the future...

I ask...What can i do? What can you do? to help the WORLDS children?

Saying good-bye to my sweet Larson long before I wanted too, has led me to see things much differently then before. For this I am SO THANKFUL that God picked this story for me. Now..I am no saint forsure. I have not somehow achieved something great, but I am thankful that some of my ignorance from before has changed to the realization that there is much more going on in the world around me. Maybe it was not ignorance, but since it wasn't affecting me directly it was easier to ignore.

What saddenes me the most is many of these children are without parents, and if they have parents, they are still unable to have food on the table and a descent education...let alone being able to enjoy the things that we do on a daily basis. How heart wrenching it is to know that there are SO many orphanes and it takes just $32 to help 1! I can't imagine not having food for my children and yet my children get to go to Red Robin...MUCH TO OFTEN! That is humbling to just write down in words. Yes...we see these children on the news in a 1 minute segment at most. Their life is more then a second. It is filled with heartache. There is SO much pain and suffering. And though I tasted a bit of it myself....I know that there are many more enduring hardships on a daily basis. Lets just say...God used my sweet boy to get my head out of my "dream world" with my perfect plan and has taken me to a reality of the pain of this world. This is not our home...it hurts...others hurt....What can we do to help?

Thanks for your eyes and ears!! I apoligize for any ramblings...hope it all makes sense. It does me!!!

I Will Rise

2 Corinthians 4:17-18
For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.

Celebrating Christ

Lots of thoughts as we celebrate this weekend the death and resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. How can I not think about the death of the one who came to die for my sin and for all of those who come to Him.

How often I think of Christ. Of course I celebrated before, but it has changed in the last year. I am not going to claim I fully understand the depth of Christs grief and sorrows as He walked to the Garden of Gethsemane. For He knew His death would be painful and yet He knew it would be with a purpose. He knew everything from beginning to end. He was fully God...yet fully Man. He had emotions like we do and yet they were perfect.

I can't help to think of Gods grief for His Son as we celebrate this weekend. For God so love the world that He GAVE His is ONLY Son that whoever believes in Him SHOULD NOT perish but have eternal life. John 3:16 Yes...God GAVE His ONLY Son. Wow. That just makes me amazed. He was willing to give up His beloved for the sin of the world. He was willing to put the perfect Christ on the cross to pay for all our imperfections.

I know I will not fully grasp this, this side of Heaven, but I had to give my own son, and it has grieved me immensely. Yet I know that Larsons life was perfect, his death could not have been sweeter and now he is with the Lord because of what Christ did. Yes Larson is in Heaven because of the same reason I will be in Heaven. Because of the sacrifice of Christ for our sin. God was merciful to give Larson a sweet life. God was willing to give His Son...let Him go through a horrible death for us.

I think of asking God to take the cup from us. To heal Larson and to take away the trial. But we also prayed that His will be done. Wow does that prayer mean so much more. Christ said the same thing. He asked His own Father in Heaven to take the cup from Him...take the cross away or let His will be done. Christ was willing to die for us. If God can let His own Son die for us...How much more should I trust God in the story He has created for me? I know with all my heart that through the heartache...that this story is perfect and will continue to be. It's perfectly written, with heartache and all! Yes this is love. Because the greatest gift still remains...the gift of Christ.

So as I celebrate Christ...I think of my joy in Him as my Saviour and yet my grief in my sin that He would die for. Yes the cross was perfect. There was joy...and there was grief. I believe I have felt my own joy and grief collide in my story with Larson and yet I can look to the Cross and see that joy and grief can collide and it is good and it is what God intended.

May you all have a blessed resurrection day!