Here are a few of my favorite lessons on service from a few of my favorite ladies:

1. Servants go with their gut.

Pharaoh’s daughter rescues Moses from the NileRiver.

She opened it and saw the baby. He was crying, and she felt sorry for him. “This is one  of the Hebrew babies,” she said. Exodus 2:6

2. Servants take chances.

Rahab hides Hebrew spies.

But the woman had taken the two men and hidden them. Joshua 2:4

3. Servants embrace the talents they have.

Dorcas makes clothes for the widows.

Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them. Acts 10:39

4. Servants right wrongs.

Abigail begs forgiveness for the way her wicked husband, Nabal, mistreated David.

Please forgive your servant’s offense, for the Lord will certainly make a lasting dynasty for my master because he fights the Lord’s battles. Let no wrongdoing be found in you as long as you live. 1 Samuel 25:28

5. Servants keep promises, even when it hurts.

Hannah takes Samuel to live with Eli and presents him to the Lord.

…She said to her husband, “After the boy is weaned, I will take him and present him before the Lord, and he will live there always.” 1 Samuel 1:21.

6. Servants pray unceasingly.

Anna continuously worships God.

She never left the temple but worshiped night and day, fasting and praying. Luke 2:37(b)

Your turn. Who are your favorite women in the Bible? What do you love about them? What do they teach you?

Sometimes I lie awake at night and wonder if I have achieved God’s purpose for my life or not.  I look back on 48 years and I don’t think anyone would say I haven’t accomplished anything.  Surviving the first seventeen years of life not really being me, the me God created me to be.  Finding the man who God planned for me to marry even though I hadn’t even met my God yet. Working two careers, in the time span of one, even though it produced grey hair, and some internal scars that no-one sees, but that I can feel when I inhale deep breaths.  Giving birth to three children, whose common DNA could produce such unique, different and evolving individuals who would all end the generational sin of their parents.

And knowing the one true God, according to scripture, is a narrow gate; one path…and  He chose me.

I feel like true purpose needs to be the story of novels and adventure and wanting more than a simple life of helping others find God and finding rest in between.

Although if you asked me I would say, and feel in the depths of my heart, that the people who God used to plant the seeds of Christ in me, had achieved all and more than a person could ever hope to on this side of eternity.

The ripple effects, like a rock skipping on a still pond, continue to reverberate through the people we love and who they love.  Six degrees of separation unifying under one God.

A miracle.  A plan.

Both.

I think we know though when we have achieved our purpose, not that there wouldn’t be a new one, in a new season, to give birth to and lay to rest.  Because I believe Jeremiah 29:11 that God has plans for me, plans for me to prosper, not to harm me.  And I know that these plans will carry on long past my time trespassing on this earth, and even longer past the time when anyone will name me.

With that, I believe that we know each time we fulfill a destiny that God planned for us.

A beautiful face of a child/woman I call mine, speaking to me on technology that has existed less than a decade, across continents and cultures, to share with me that she is living her purpose.

To see the world through the eyes of God’s people, the poor, the weak, those that God himself has declared will inherit the earth, and to know it is true. And in less than a span of days to understand a message that most of us don’t know for many more decades to come, if at all, that the world in all of its complexity….where science and creation battle…..and technology and progress skip continents and communities…is as simple as The Creator could make it.

The secret He shares through His son, who walked briefly in our world in order to one day claim what humanity and this world are purposed for since creation:  to love God and love others.

Which leads me back to purpose.

In all fairness to our creative God, I must give credit that our purpose is mostly different for Him than we would hear from the world.

It is the story under the story, that is the script of the One who created the characters, and knows the beginning and the end.

It is the soldier who didn’t do anything to earn praise at home, and in despair, joined the military as his last chance to get things right.  This same soldier. when on this path that God created him for, heroically gives up his life for his brothers in combat.  And a people back home that didn’t embrace him for who he was, but would later salute him and love him for who he became.

When ink hits paper, and the words flow, and the reader absorbs each word as a lifeline.  The ten words read out of 500 pages. by one person in hundreds of millions, whose life is forever changed, even though the author never knew her.

It is waking up each day thanking the Lord for the day that He has given, down on our knees asking the Father of us all to please use us today for His purposes, that is our purpose, and that when these unite we know it was His destiny for us.

We just know.

And I will share with you that I pray each day that I will have the courage to step out in faith and live this purpose.  Because it is in this purpose that God has given specifically to me, that will create a moment of intersection, where I will be pleasing Him.  Pleasing Him by loving Him and loving others.

It is pretty clear to me that all of God’s plans for all of his children, lead to just that; loving Him and loving others.

Just as Mordecai said to Esther in the time where she would speak up at the risk of her life to save His people, “And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” I believe God purposes us for just such a time and place to serve Him.

I pray that you and I will be ready when that time and place occurs.

The hurt’s so heavy, but the waiting room’s so full. There’s not a chair in sight. So many needs.

And so you slide down the wall to the floor, and hug your chin to your knees, and the nurse calls another, and someone else takes their seat.

It happens over and over, and you watch as each leaves in laughter.

And you’ve been here forever, and you’re sure you’ve been skipped over, forgotten. So you step to the window, but the staff shake their heads. Not yet. And the doctor, you see him over there by the scales, and your eyes meet, but he turns his head away and toward another.

He knows you. But He ignores you.

And you weep bitter tears. Your prayers clatter to the floor and lie there in pieces. Silence hisses from every corner, and it seems like all his promises are peeling away.

I’ve been reading in Matthew 15 about the Canaanite woman who cries for mercy because her daughter is so ill. But Jesus doesn’t respond at all. It’s like he doesn’t even hear. But she keeps on keeping on until his disciples beg him to send her away because she won’t shut up.

Finally Jesus answers that he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel. But she doesn’t give up and throws herself at his feet and begs him for help.

It’s not right, he tells her, to snatch the children’s bread from their mouths and throw it to the dogs.

But, she presses, even beggar dogs get table scraps.

Astonished at her stick-to-itiveness, at her relentless faith, Jesus heals her daughter right then and there.

Her persistence pays off.

Paul Miller in A Praying Life comments on this story.

If Jesus were a magic prayer machine, he’d have healed this woman’s daughter instantly, and we would not have discovered her feisty, creative spirit. Likewise, Jesus’ ambiguity with us creates the space not only for him to emerge but us as well. If the miracle comes too quickly, there is no room for discovery, for relationship. With both this woman and us, Jesus is engaged in a divine romance, wooing us to himself.

The waiting that is the essence of faith provides the context for relationship. Faith and relationship are interwoven in dance. Everyone talks now about how prayer is relationship, but often what people mean is having warm fuzzies with God. Nothing wrong with warm fuzzies, but relationships are far richer and more complex.

He goes on to say that God permitted a difficult situation and then lingered at the edge of the story, not at the center. It’s hard, he says, to relate to pure light.

Maybe it’s that love grows deeper in the lingering and faith grows wider in the waiting.

And real relationship requires a little confusion and a lot of time.

When God seems silent and our prayers go unanswered, the overwhelming temptation is to leave the story–to walk out of the desert and attempt to create a normal life. But when we persist in a spiritual vacuum, when we hang in there during ambiguity, we get to know God. In fact, that is how intimacy grows in all close relationships.

Are you now or have you been in God’s waiting room of unanswered prayer? How can we at BibleDude wait with you or pray for you?

It’s not for the faint of heart, this parenting business.

Lately, he’s gone more than he’s home and I’m feeling a lot like that sludge circling the bottom of the sink after the dishwater has been drained.  Down, down, swirling bubbles and gone, left with the bleh.  But I read to know I’m not alone, because C.S. Lewis told me so, and boy, was he right.  And I remember a friend who writes healing words about my hands.  About the miles they’ve traveled and the beauty they’ve seen.  About the beauty they are.

I turn them over, though soggy with dishwater and wrinkled sensitive, they are a bit beautiful, aren’t they?

Even the sensitive parts.  No, especially the sensitive parts.

These hands that tap keys and wipe buttocks and make dinner.  Again.  These hands that upsweep ponytails and hold the camera so I can find the maddening beauty here, in all this preposterous repetition, so I don’t succumb to the maddening.  Or perhaps, I do.  These hands that massage sore muscles in whispered night hours when he finally warms the other side of the bed for his few winks.  To paraphrase the sage words of Mother Teresa, these hands do no great things, only a few shabby things with great love.

But I think the hardest part of parenting is not the ordinary struggles of schedule balancing or discipline or the days that all line up and blur together like a string of monotonous Mondays in late winter.  I think the hardest part of parenting is a poisonous little word that eeks into our emotional center, insidious, suggestive, serpentine.  It’s guilt.*

And we talk about our kids on our date (because what else do you talk about, right?) and we start to hear it in the sound of our own voices reverberating off the windshield.  We feel guilty.  Not enough time together.  Discipline’s inconsistent.  Saying “yes” to too much.  Saying “no” to too much.  No pool for the summer.  Not enough opportunities for their talents.  More candy than they need.  On and on and on.  First it’s my fault, then it’s his.  And round and round.  I’m getting dizzy and why does the car seem to spin all of the sudden?

He names it first, puts down anchor, “I guess I just feel guilty.”

And it’s like something has split wide open.  We both see it and neither of us is pointing a finger.  Not at each other.  Not even at ourselves.  We are starting to see the pernicious root of the problem, there, lying quietly concealed under all the rubble of blame.  The poison is the guilt we have allowed to saturate our thinking:  That we’re not doing it right.  That there must be a right and a wrong way to do everything and we will feel better – stable, even – when we’ve discovered the right way.  Like God needs us to decipher His formula so He can bless us.  Because certainly He’s much more like a nasal, calculating math teacher than like a storyteller, spinning yarns . . . er, right?

Not only does this guilt affect the decisions we make, but more importantly, it affects how we feel about the decisions we make.  Every decision is made half-heartedly, a “yes” can’t be confident and a “no” is wavering at best, because insecurity, like an untrusting spouse is present in the background, wreaking doubtful havoc.  Our little things, though done with love, look more like crumbs for the dogs than bread for the children.  And it’s single-handedly sabotaging our enjoyment of this once-in-a-lifetime amazing adventure called parenting.

We look at each other.  The grace shines in our eyes with the tears.  We know we need both.

My eyes go to his work-worn, cracked and dry hands, what a tale they tell.  And is it my imagination, or is he looking at my hands, too?  Seeing the soak in large sinks of dishwater and the middle-of-the-night-wiping-of-the-brow for a sick child.  We hold them out as a lifeline.  As a grace line.  All the sensitive parts and calloused parts, too.

And my hands, these mysterious, creative, resplendent things, they perform yet another not-so-shabby little thing.  They wipe the tears from his cheeks.  He sees I don’t hold him hostage for missing dinners and soccer games just as much as he doesn’t hold me hostage for the mountain of unmatched socks that I’ll never climb.  We take our forlorn hands, all generous grace contained, and wind them together.  Stronger that way.  Healing in the touch.

It’s our hands that bring us back to true Center.

To the only firm place to stand.  To the only One who will ever get it all right.  Or better yet, who will make it all right.  Because the truth in parenting – the truth in all of life – is that He doesn’t do good work because of us, even on our best day – but rather, in spite of us.

Like beauty in spite of dishwater hands.

*Note: I realize there is such a thing as ‘healthy guilt’.  This piece is not meant to address that in any way, shape or form.  What I mean by ‘guilt’ here is the vague sense that what I do is not enough.  And the heavy footprints of shame that often ride with it.

Helping people is really hard. Not only does it require lots of time and generous financial donations, but it also takes a good plan. Helping people truly get out of poverty, empowering people be able to provide for themselves can make anyone, no matter how smart or experienced, question themselves and feel hopeless.

This was a situation I faced last summer as I prepared to journey to Haiti. I had just been awarded a one year fellowship through my church and was looking to send a year helping with the community development in the rural town of La Croix.

I went down in September 2012 with my plan, but I was still unclear whether my work would be a successful or not. The mission is built with a large open roof that looked out to the surrounding mountains, and every evening I would go up to the roof and ask myself “What can I do to help that farmer, what can I do to make the small rural farmer better off?”.

One night, after much thought and prayer, I thought “goats! That’s the solution!”.

Families in rural Haiti do not have access to any form of commercial credit, and they struggle to keep large amounts of cash on hand. They have no way to store a large amount of money, so the only way they can afford to make large purchases is by keeping animals around that they can sell when they need to make a large purchase. If I could get more goats, I could help that rural farmer.

Now that I had the idea, my next step was to figure out a plan.

How would I get more goats to these poor farmers?

At first it seemed easy. I was heading back to the US in December to share my experience, what a great opportunity to ask people to “give a goat to Haiti”. This seemed perfect; I had a great way to help the small-time farmer and finding the funds wouldn’t be too difficult. How could this go wrong?

I was feeling quite good about myself at this point, and then I started talking about the project. I would proudly state my seemingly infallible idea to those back in the US, and instead of it being met with applause (as I had intended), the plan was met with a bunch of questions.

How do we guarantee that the people use the goats to better themselves?

Do we risk flooding the market?

How does this really bring people out of poverty?

With just a few conversations, I had gone from confidently victorious to hesitant and unenthusiastic. Was this program all I had made it out to be? What was I missing? I made a list of the questions and began to do more research. I spent lots of time talking the program over with all the Haitians at the mission. I asked anyone who would talk with me, and I’d ask them everything. I critiqued my own ideas, and I began to see the project through a “Haitian state of mind”.

This intensive questioning process was not easy.

Not only did I have to work hard to figure out a plan that would really help people come out of poverty,  but I had to set aside my own ego. I had to trust in the wisdom of those around me as I ventured into the murky sea of uncertainty. My original idea, my sound byte plan of “raise money back at home to buy goats in the Haiti”, needed a lot of help.

When I eventually went to raise the money, I had a project that would not only help the poor rural farmers in Haiti, but a project that I could defend. The original idea was the same but there were so many details added in that would ensure the program’s success.

When I started to develop the project, when I started to move from an idea on the roof to an actual plan, I had to ask a bunch of questions. I had to take my idea with all its flaws, and turn it into a real project that could actually help someone. I had to add certain details that would prevent the program from being a simple hand out, and I had to strip other details. I was continually revising and editing. I had to take everyone’s advice and trust the knowledge of those around me. I couldn’t pass judgment on anyone’s ideas, no matter how far out they seemed. I was the one with the deficit, so I had to use anything that would make this program better. I had to set aside my own goals and focus on the well-being of the community.

To put it simply, the program had to be born again.

As Christians we have to go through this same process. We have to come before God with all of our flaws and shortcomings and leave them on the altar of God. We have to take all of us, the pretty parts and the ugly, and simply say to God “I need help, I can’t do this on my own”. We don’t always know the result, and there are many uncertainties along the way, but at the end of the day we are made whole.

If we judge those who God puts in our path, we will only be hurting ourselves.

God may have to add some qualities and remove others, God may have to stop us from doing certain things and lead us down other paths, but at the end of the day we are more fulfilled than we could ever imagine.

Whether in our own lives or in our attempts to help those in poverty, “the humility of a child” (Matthew 18:4) will deliver the greatest success and satisfaction.

When’s the last time you’ve been truly desperate for something? A love returned, a paycheck to provide food for your family, or maybe for God to return a wayward child?

You can hardly breathe due to the tension wrapping its gnarly fingers around you. You find yourself jumpy, nervous, and a new warrior in the army of worry fighters. But you can’t let others know about your internal struggle! You have people counting on you. You’ve got to be strong, determined, and Webster’s definition of confident.

Most of us would agree that desperation is not a lovely place to be. We spend our lives avoiding pits of desperation, and if we find ourselves caught in one, we exude every ounce of energy possible to crawl out of it—inch by dirty, muddy inch. We’re self-sufficient, American-dream chasers, after all.

We’ve talked before about God being backwards—often operating very contrary to how we think life should be. It shouldn’t surprise us, then, to learn that He likes desperate people. He actually wants us to be desperate…

For Him.

Scripture is filled to the brim with people finding themselves in absolute desperation. Joseph in his years of slavery and a victim of betrayal; David, when hunted by Saul for years on end; and even Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, praying fervently to not go to the cross.

Desperation dog-ears Scripture in almost (if not every) book. The story of our lives would find similar dog-eared moments of desperation in every chapter. Shout out for Scripture’s relevancy, huh?

The crazy part in all of this is God seems to enjoy it. He actually takes pleasure in us reaching the end of ourselves, because it’s then we finally start reaching to Him.

It’s easy to trust God and have faith when things are going splendidly. When life is all daisies and roses (at least mostly), we dub our faith Goliath size and call it a day. But desperate times call for sincere reevaluations of our faith.

Are we really living our true posture—desperate for God for everything, even things we take for granted daily? See, we are desperate for God whether we realize it or not. We depend on God for our every breath, our every heart beat. But too often we think we’re depending on ourselves for those things. Then, when life turns tumultuous, we realize just how not in control we are. Then and only then do we find ourselves in desperate abandon for God and His favor in our current situation.

Unfortunately, we usually return to the cycle of faux self sufficiency within a day or two.

But what if we lived lives of dependence on God? What if we began craving dependence on Him and learned to savor it? Our faith would be stronger, would it not? We’d relinquish control and align our agendas with God’s far more often—which always proves to be the best course of action.

So let’s do it! Let’s be desperate people, aware of our desperation on God. Let’s get out of the way and let Him be the hero in our stories.  Let’s unleash His glory by owning up to our insufficiency and letting His sufficiency reign.

It’s hard to believe it was nine years ago when it happened.

We were new parents. our first (and only) child was barely 17-months old. His toddler-talk always made me laugh, and he brought a joy to our lives that overflowed. He had been walking for a few months now, so chasing him became one of our most common activities. You know the drill. Daddy makes a step in his direction with an “I’m gonna get you” face, the boy screams and starts running in the other direction, daddy chases for a while letting him barely slip away a few times, boy giggles uncontrollably, then daddy scoops up the boy with lots of love and laughter.

I would do anything for that kid.

We also had our share of not so fun days. Nebulizer treatments helped us treat some fairly regular asthmatic-like symptoms. And then there were the tubes in the ears to help with the frequent ear infections. But none of this stuff was big enough for us to lose too much sleep over.

Then came my second ever Father’s Day. This was going to be the fun one, because he wasn’t even six months old the first time we celebrated this glorious event.

But something was wrong. It had been building up for a few weeks. My son was getting unusually cranky. Nothing seemed to please him. He’d ask for something to eat, but then when we put food in front of him, he refused to eat anything. He was also slimming out quite a bit. At first we thought it was just dropping of the baby fat because he was becoming more mobile and active.

My wife and I both had this uneasy feeling. We knew something was wrong.

First thing Monday morning, she took him in to his pediatrician just to check it out and be on the safe side. I went into work, and waited for the phone call to let me know how he was doing. My phone rang, and that was the moment everything changed. “We have to take him up to All Children’s Hospital right away,” she told me.

Type 1 Diabetes interrupted our lives that day.

I had a lot to figure out, and I had to stay strong for my family. But, I was broken. All I knew about Diabetes was that my uncle (who died WAY too young) had it his whole life too. Based on my limited experience, the outlook wasn’t good… at all.

My wife struggled even more than I did, going into a pretty deep depression for several years. Today she says that she feels like Diabetes robbed her of so many years of not seeing the blessings that we had, despite the unwelcome diagnosis.

It’s been nine years now since that day our world was turned upside down. And thanks to some great technology and advancements in research, things are pretty well under control.

While it’s not always easy, we try not to let the disease define his life. There are many days when living with Diabetes is not very pleasant, both physically and emotionally. Regardless, we pick ourselves up and do what we need to do to keep moving forward.

When I think about my son, I see a kind and compassionate young man who wants to make a difference in the world. I can’t tell you how proud that makes me. I remember one day when he stopped me to tell me about some girls he was watching on a game show.

“Dad, they love Jesus, just like I do,” he tells me.

I asked, “How do you know that?”

He told me about how they were playing to raise money for an orphanage, and he said, “Because they love orphans, just like I do.”

He gets it. And the best part is that he’s choosing what kinds of things define his life.

I’m excited to watch this young man grow up. I’m excited to see him choose life, not only in his (physical) situation, but also with others. We pray together nearly every day for the child we sponsor in Haiti. And I’m hoping to get him down there very soon.

Every Father’s Day I remember the feelings around that one nine years ago. And every year I am impressed to see new growth, new things to celebrate. I’m most excited to see where this young man’s story goes from here. Because this story is unfinished…

The church sound equipment had been tampered with. A group of middle school boys passing through the church after school were responsible. In response, they were required to complete community service hours at the church. My husband, the youth pastor at the time, took up the task.

When the community service hours were complete, something funny happened, the boys stayed. Wednesday night youth group included their presence. They had friends and their friends had friends. Suddenly, youth group seeped over the edges of normal.

There was inappropriate language and scuffles from long-held grudges. Questions about God emmerged, serious doubts, embedded in histories where hope was not very visible. At the end of night, we stood in piles of pop cans, trails of popcorn and pizza boxes piled high. Often, the following morning some kind of message would await us about something witnessed the night before that hugged the edge of appropriate.

One evening at the beginning of an all-nighter, called Cruisin’ through the Night, we stood facing off against seventy middle school students. The wild factor was tipping the church off its foundation. The boys and their friends and their friends, were present in the mix. That night one of the boys tipped a bag of winter salt over in the church elevator. The next morning, my husband and I stood surveying the mess as we came face-to-face with adult members of the church. I remember reaching out to hit the close door button, we road down to the basement in silence.

Those boys stayed. Not only did they stay, they were loyal to a fault. Sometimes we wondered why.

I think it was the second chance, offered up in love, the presence of people who cared about them even though they struggled.

It was the way the church kids responded too. They embraced these kids from the other side of the tracks without question. They were weaved into small groups and included in activities. The kids didn’t miss a beat in offering the grace of Christ.

We all learned we are not so different, all these lives moving together in grace.

 What has made you stick with someone who was challenging? Has a second chance ever changed you? 

Image courtesy of [Ambro] / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

A warm breeze blows through my open window.

We haven’t had a warm breeze here in over 6 months.

It feels heavenly.

And yet, I’m not thinking about my garden, or the budding trees. My mind is thousands of miles away, in the poorest of countries, with a people I’ve never met, but whose eyes I can never forget.

Poverty has been on my mind a lot lately. It’s an uncomfortable topic. Somehow, in all my years, I’ve felt that it’s sort of taboo to talk about the impoverished nations of the world. I remember the Ethiopian famine when I was a kid, and my parents telling me about the children starving in Africa, so I better finish my meatloaf and green beans.

Television revealed a totally foreign world of malnourished, pot-bellied children. Filled with faces of sad, hungry kids, squatting in dirty, trash-filled slums, those images on TV shocked me. It didn’t seem real. The pictures made me sad, but I felt totally powerless to do anything. I didn’t even feel like I was supposed to do anything. Feeling sad, and shaking my head in sympathy seemed like the only thing I could do.

Maybe my parents sent money, maybe they didn’t, but one thing was sure: that level of poverty was not part of our reality. We could change the channel and the Love Boat would be taking us on another adventure, the pleading eyes of third-world children quickly forgotten.

And even into my adulthood, I’ve not thought too much about those children. I’ve been busy, having babies, raising babies, making important decisions about houses and jobs and schools.

But then a couple of years ago, I stumbled onto a few blogs where the writers traveled with Compassion to different countries around the world. Not exactly mission trips, but more of a “go check it out and write about it” type of a trip.

When I first read about their experiences here, here, and here, I was stunned. The stories were so vivid, so personal. Suddenly, those faces that I associated with poverty had names and families and stories. They had smiles and hopes and dreams. They bathed in dirty water, lived in cramped quarters, and ate next to nothing. They had amazingly good attitudes, despite their extreme lack.

They became real.

They lived in cement block homes, with dirt floors. One-room dwellings with no windows and roofs missing.

Shacks on stilts in the middle of a jungle.

And as I sat here in my 2600 square feet of warm and cozy comfort, my eyes began to open. For the first time, I saw their reality–this was their life–and the vast differences between my life and theirs. Never do I worry about where our next meal will come from. Or if we’ll sleep safe tonight. Or if we’ll survive tomorrow.

But out there, beyond my window, 640 million children are without adequate shelter.

And today, and every day, 22,000 children will die from malnourishment.

Maybe the most shocking statistic I learned: that 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.

In the past, knowing this would leave me riddled with guilt. Maybe that’s why poverty has always felt like an uncomfortable social topic–maybe we’ve all just felt guilty that we’re here and they’re there, and we have it so much better than they do, and what can we really do anyway?

But guilt is the wrong reaction. Not only is it unproductive, it doesn’t make sense. None of us chose the circumstances we were born into. I didn’t choose to be born into a comfortable, middle-class family, with loving, protective parents. That I was born into the life I have is purely grace. It’s all a gift.

But what if—and this is where it starts to freak me out a little—that gift was meant to be used for greater good? What if my life, filled full with love and joy and relative ease—was meant to be a launching pad for something bigger?

Instead of responding in guilt, maybe action is the better response.

I can’t help where I was born. But God wants to form me, all of us, into His image. He wants to make us more like Him. And maybe His image can’t be pinned or followed, but crafted and formed by being His heart to the least of these. By getting outside of ourselves and seeing with His eyes. By loving and serving and laying down our lives.

And maybe serving the poor isn’t all about just helping them. Maybe we’re the ones that need help. Maybe we’re actually the ones that need to be fed, us with our bellies and bank accounts full, with our homes warm and safe, but maybe it’s our hearts that are starving and malnourished. Can we really be happy if we’re consumed with pretty pins on pinboards?

What kind of reality is that, anyway?

I’m not saying that everyone should quit their jobs and become missionaries. We’re all uniquely equipped for the plans God has for us, and full-time missions certainly isn’t everyone’s call.

But I’m beginning to think that when Jesus told us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves, he meant more than just being nice to the mailman. The Samaritan didn’t just give a sympathetic head tilt when he saw the man beaten on the side of the road. He didn’t assume that someone else would take care of the problem. He showed him mercy. He gave of himself.

Rolling around in my heart is this crazy notion: What if God actually wants us to feed the hungry and remember the poor? Not big agencies, not full-time missionaries, but little old, regular us? What if He really wants us to care for orphans and widows; not merely with sincere words, but with merciful action? What if His greatest desire is for us to know fullness of joy by being His heart to a hurting world?

And what if this whole time I am missing it, and the world is wasting away while I waste time on Facebook, and I have the power to do something, to make a difference?

I never thought the impoverished world was my reality or responsibility but the reality is this:

There is a world outside my window, begging for help, begging for mercy.

They did not ask to be born into their circumstances.

But I have the choice to respond with mine.

Louis tells me I think too much. He’s probably right, but I was two months shy of my 41st birthday when my last baby was born. I was a mother with children at home for a long time. This quiet, full-of-peace life I enjoy these days is the first in over thirty years I’ve had real time to wonder and think – long and slow and in complete, unfragmented sentences.

It’s in this quiet life that God has released dormant gifts and revealed new ones, and I’m grateful and full of wonder that He would trust me of all people to not bury or waste them, but to steward these gifts well.

I tell Louis that God might not remember that I’m a mature woman now – and I wonder, “What in this world am I to do with these perfectly delightful gifts in a celebrity culture that gives weight to and values the talents and gifts of the young and relevant and beautiful – not a woman of a certain age like me?”

“Why didn’t God make room for them in my life earlier?” I question Louis, as though he has the answer.

“Every generous act and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with Him there is no variation or shadow cast by turning.” James 1.17 (HCSB)

So God in His sovereignty sees to it that I’m asked to lead a group of women in Bible study, and together, these women and I, we open up the book of James – with Beth Moore as our teacher.

“Out of God’s astounding grace, a very imperfect person can still receive a delightfully perfect gift precisely because it’s perfect for her.” Beth Moore

I still don’t have all the answers, but I begin to see a glimpse of purpose – that God has a perfect plan for these gifts. That His plan is for my benefit and His glory, and that’s all I need to know today.

“God’s gifts are given with goals. They’re perfect because they’re perfecting. They don’t just give today. They give toward every tomorrow.” Beth Moore

I pick up my camera and walk out into the backyard in time to watch bees drink deep from the trumpeted orange blossoms of the firebush while zebra longwings flutter from blossom to blossom for sweet nectar drinks of their own. I stand still by the firebush in the late afternoon sun, filled with awe at God’s faithful goodness to me, and I thank Him for letting me see and delight in His creation in these bees and butterflies on display in the glory of a firebush.

The heat from the sun becomes oppressive and just as I’m ready to turn off the camera and go inside, a hummingbird buzzes by right in front of me as though I don’t even exist – and I don’t know how, but I do know this – that the hummingbird is a perfect, perfecting-me gift.

And that’s all I need to know for today.

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings. –Psalm 17:8

There are days when I plead for Him to come and come soon. When the weight of the whole broken business of life grabs hold and pulls me straight to the bottom, when I’m sure this can’t go on much longer—certain that redemption is right around the corner. It must be. These are the big-tragedy-on-the-news days, the hard-and-hurting days, the desperate-for-redemption days. The only response is the groan of my soul as it leans its weight into the shoulder of God and I linger long in the shadow of His wings. Those are the days I seem to say it over and over and over. Have mercy.

And then there are days when my soul doesn’t groan, days when I am downright basking in the blazing heat as I wander farther from those shadowy wings. These are the too-busy days, the life-is-going-okay days, the Bible-is-collecting-dust days. I forget about God. I busy myself with all the things and squeeze half-hearted worship in between grocery shopping and calling the dentist, and all the while I stray farther from His wings, in fast pursuit of living.

But life outside of the shadow of His wings is no life at all.

I know. I’ve lived there.

Left to my own devices, I make a home in the darkness of the world. I believe that life is about the things I do, the places I go and the busy I chronically wrap myself in. I have strayed far from the wings of my Father, chased every kind of worldly delight and unwrapped sin disguised with endless sorts of shiny wrappings. This world is a candy store of false satisfaction and in my foolishness, I am a child who has wandered far away from my Daddy even as He calls my name, sampling every taste of this sugar-coated world, believing the serpent’s age-old lie that there is something more fulfilling on this earth than His protective shadow. I eat of what He tells me not to eat of and in doing so, I forsake the entire beautiful garden for the sake of the forbidden.

I have learned through much pain and doubt that the colorful intrigue of earthly temptation melts quickly into darkness with every moment that I live as the center of my own universe. What tastes sweet rots the heart as it rots the teeth, and distance from God is not freedom after all but a cavity in the soul that widens with every step away from Him.

I am Eve’s daughter and I have run fast and often from the shadow of God’s wing. I follow serpents through fields of lies and the world gets dimmer and dimmer. My eyes adjust to the dark and I begin to think God is too far, too big, too busy for the likes of me. And I keep pretty busy anyway doing all the things so I’ll just chill here in the blackness for a while and get comfortable, and I’ll catch up with Jesus later on, when the going gets tough, and it always does.

I return to the place beneath His wings, the place he leaves wide open for me, but I am battered from all that He has warned against, all that He seeks to protect me from. The groaning of my soul in the hard things is better than a carefree distance of dependency because it is in this state that I wander from Him most. People say it is easy to praise God when things are going well, when life is good, but it is also easy to coast through a sugar-coated illusion of living in a state of false contentment. It is harder to be on my face before God, the most elevated place I could ever hope to climb, when I am distracted by the shiny things of the world.

The deeper I draw to His heart, the more of a big, beautiful paradox I see Him to be. It is only in Him that the last shall be first. It is only in Him that flat-faced at the floor of the cross is where we find mountaintop glory. It is only God’s shadow which does not hide light or block it, but draws us ever nearer to the light, that floods us indeed with the Light of the World.

Away from His shadow, there is only darkness.

My 5-year-old is afraid of the dark, and its another way that the child-like get to the depths of God before the rest of us. Every night, Caleb and I have our ritual of goodnight prayers, silly giggles and just-one-more-then-I’ll-go-to-sleep kisses and then we giggle and implore those bed bugs not to bite and just before I leave the room he yells it, desperate, “Don’t close the door! Leave the light on for me, I’m scared of the dark!”

I hope he always is.

And as I busy myself with everything other than settling tightly in the arms of God, it becomes my prayer, too.

Leave the light on for me, Lord. Help me fear the darkness of sin so much that I do not stray outside of your protection, like I have so often. Remind me, Lord, that there is no forbidden fruit, no sugar-coated life that can satisfy and that away from you, there is only darkness. Hide me in the shadow of your wings.