I was born July 18, 1978 at 8:06 in the morning.

I was born July 18th, 1978 at 8:06 in the morning.  I was a scheduled birth because my sister was breach and had to be delivered by c-section and back in those days if one child was delivered that way the babies to follow had to as well.  I have a baby book that has my umbilical cord, hair from my first hair cut and details of my first year of life.  I have photos to document my black eye healing from when I fell down the stair as a toddler and pictures of me eating ice cream and getting it all over my face.  I have yearly school photos, most of which show an awkward scrawny girl just trying to fit in.  I have friends and family who have celebrated me on the day I was born for the past 35 years.

Today I live in India and have the wonderful opportunity to work with kids who have spent most of their life on the streets begging.  A few of them being physically disabled probably didn’t have any other choice but to beg.  We have five kids, Malti, Roshan, Guddu, Shyam, and Raju, who work at the JOYN office and if you were to ask them their birthday they can not tell you.  They have no photos to document the first years of their life.  They do not have a birth certificate to show the time, the place, or the day of their birth.  No one has ever celebrated them for being born.  No cake with candles or presents to open or that one birthday card from the grandma who thinks 5 dollars is still a lot of money. 

Yesterday we took the kids to the doctor to have a bone density test done to find out how old they are.  They are all young adults with a future that looks a little brighter for them.  Malti is 18, Roshan is 18, Guddu is 18, Shyam is 19 and Raju is 20 years old.  They where so excited to finally know for sure their age and can say it with confidence.  Before when you would ask Malti her age you would always get a different answer.  Sometimes she was 18 and sometimes she was 20.  

Today all over the world people are celebrating the birth of a royal baby and I am surrounded by so many people who have never been celebrated for being born.  It is amazing what is in a name and I live in a country where your last name can make all the difference in the opportunity you will receive!  It makes me want to hold them all a little closer and tell them all they are loved!  I want them to know they are beautiful! I want them to know God doesn’t create a life without purpose and theirs is great!  I want them to know they are celebrated at JOYN everyday! 

Eight legged freaks...

Those of you who know me know that I love spiders... NOT.  Over the years living in Arkansas I have slowly gotten better at dealing with them.  Let me just say there was a time when a friend received a phone call at midnight to come kill a spider that was smaller then a dime!  To my credit the spider had red on it so it could have been dangerous! 

When deciding to come to India I remember sitting down and talking with Mel, the founder of JOYN, about what to expect.  She started with saying that her partner Rikki thought it would be good to ask a list of questions like how do you deal with spiders, etc...  She listed more things but I stopped listening after spiders and quickly stopped Mel from going any further.  I asked her in a timid voice, “you have spiders?”.  She proceeded to tell me a story of using the restroom late at night and went to lean back when she realized there was a giant spider on the back of the toilet.  I cried a little inside as she told this story and then asked her if it is culturally inappropriate to scream like a little girl?  She assured me that it wasn’t and that put me at ease a little.  Never the less I wasn’t going to let my fear get the best of me, “I can do this”, I thought to myself.

As I packed my bags and started my move east I knew what was ahead, a new journey, a great job and giant arachnids!  Daily I was on the look out  especially when entering my bathroom.  It had been almost three months and I hadn’t seem any big spiders and thought to myself “God is good”.  I even bragged to a friend that I have had a lot of grace with all of the bugs in our house, termites, ants and the occasional small spider.  Go figure a couple of days later I had my first terrifying encounter.  

Picture this; I was skyping with my dad having a good time when I looked up from the computer and saw the eight legged freak.  She was the biggest spider I had ever seen outside of a glass box at a zoo and she was close to touching my pillow.  My eyes started to fill with tears and my breath started to quicken as I told my dad I had to go and figure out how to deal with charlotte.  I started to pace back and forth praying for grace and to not fear.  I knew this moment was coming but I thought it would take place outside or in a common room of the house.  Ease me into dealing with this things!  I tried to pump myself up and come up with a plane of attack.  I couldn’t smash her as she was told large and would most likely spray spider guts all over my room and that is just nasty!  I couldn’t put her in a bowl as I would have to get close to her and how do you get a spider into a bowl from a wall?  There was no hope I was going to have to move out of my room and take up residence in a bubble somewhere.  Thankfully my roommates returned home and to my rescue.  They quickly threw a towel over her and put her outside.  They made it look so easy, like Michael Jackson doing the moonwalk. Needless to say I did not sleep well that night or a couple nights there after.

To help myself deal with this traumatic experience I rearranged my room and came up with several steps to follow before going to sleep.  The first thing I do when returning home from work or an outing is open my door and survey the war zone.  Once the cost is clear I quickly step into my room and look behind me just in case there is something above my door.  I then check the bathroom, behind my pillows,  my sheets and under my bed to make sure all is well!  I also keep reminding myself that God did not give us a spirit of fear and I fully believe that one day that will be a reality when it comes to giant arachnids.

2 Timothy 1:7 "  For God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control." 

The judgement seat

We have been brought up in a society that has taught us judge.  Almost every media source is telling us what is beautiful and what is ugly.  What is fat and what is skinny.  What is right and what is wrong.  We where never meant to hold the seat of judge for this world and to be honest I am tired of sitting in it.  I have noticed a lot lately that I make a judgement about everything because I know best of course.

So for example I am in the process of looking for a new church and from the moment I drive into the parking lot the judgements start flowing through my mind.  Oh these people spend way to much on their cars.  They are dressed to nice.  Then inside I start to judge the worship style and the way the are people worshipping.  There is music playing so why in the heck are these people standing still.  I have never seen more stiff people then on the inside of churches.  I bet if you took those church folk to a concert they would start to bob there heads and tap their feet so why does that change when the music is being played in a place called a "church"!  David danced before the lord in his underwear.  Then the pastor starts to preach and I roll my eyes at most of what he says.  I am not baby so stop feeding me baby food and give me meat.  Lets dig into who God is and what his word says.  I am fully aware of John 3:16.  Its on plenty of bumper stickers here in the bible belt.  Let discuss Revelations or why hell exists.  Lets talk about the taboo subjects.  Now the service is over and its time to go.  No one really stops me to say hi so of course that makes these people unfriendly.  I am new and they should notice me and want to know me.  How awful is my mind?

How will I ever find a church if this is how I let my mind run?  God never intended me to be the judge.  He has that seat and it is rightful his.  The bible tells us to love his people.  To show compassion and kindness.  All my mind is doing is judging and not loving.  It is not giving people a chance to shine and show you who there are.  To show who God has created them to be.  What right do I have to decide what is in the heart of another?  What right do I have to put a price on beauty and worth?  What right do I have to say "I know best and the rest of you have it all wrong"?  It is a sickness that is plaguing America and I am sure the world and I know for sure if is afflicting me.

How do we learn to control our minds?  I think it takes a lot of work and conscience choice to choose what we allow ourselves to think and believe.  It is recognizing the judgements and the lies and throwing them out with the trash.  It is choosing to project love and kindness.  To show compassion and empathy.  I just finished reading the book Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and in the book she goes to Bali to learn from a medicine man and help him with his English.  He is teaching her the Bali way to meditate and one of those ways is to just sit and smile on the outside and with your liver.  I have thought a lot about how it would change someones face as well as their inner self if they spent 15 minutes a day sitting in silence smiling.  I think we would be filled with more joy.  I think those 15 minutes would turn into a smile you wear all day long.  I have been meaning to try this out so if I ever stop thinking and just do I will let you know the outcome.  

If we could recognize that we where ALL created in Gods image and we are all beautiful how different would the world appear?  Whether you are short or tall, yellow or white, brown or black we are all beautiful.  If we could learn to look at ourselves and the world through a lens that is filtered by God and not the world it would change our lives.  It would shake everything we believe about ourselves.  It would break off all the lies and crap that we have allowed ourselves to believe.   We are all beautiful and we are all loved by God.  We are far more precious then silver and worth way more then gold!  Lets stop judging ourselves and the world.  Lets choose love and to refocus our lens!

"Faith, hope and love… The greatest of these is love."  

Small fish in a big pond...

Today I was reminded of my freshmen year of college.  Oh the joy of moving out from under the mother and into the world.  I felt so free yet bound to this idea of what life was suppose to look like.  I could stay up til three in the morning and there was no one to yell at me when I returned home.  I could sleep all day on saturday with out my mom trying to sing song me awake at eight in the morning.  Everything seemed right.  I liked being a small fish in a big pond.  I was doing what the world said, "graduate from high school and go get your college degree".

Everything was possible in college and the sky was the limit.  I could be what ever I wanted to be and when I graduated the world will be at my finger tips.  Then I graduate and realized the world was very far away.  Having a college degree didn't seem to matter.  It was a piece of paper.  It is a piece of paper that I am very proud of but it is paper none the less.  Graduating college brought me face to face with the reality that I had no idea what I was going to do with my life.  No one had prepared me for real life.  I felt gipped.

Tonight as my friends enjoyed some tasty frozen yogurt on Dickson a group of obvious freshmen walked by.  You could see the wild light in their eyes and the naivety in their faces. My dear friend Crosby said "I would not want to be that age again.  I like where we are."  She is so right!  Even though life is not how I had imagined it to be I would not want to go back to the awkward age of 18.  I like where I am and I look forward to trying to figure out what I am going to do with my life.   This is just the beginning.

Warning to the wise

I have been feeling for the past several weeks that I should start a blog and have fought that feeling as I have been anti blog for some time.  So if this is a venture I am going to take I decided this first post needs to be a warning to all of you smarty pants out there!


The warning is this...
1.  If you have issues with spelling errors then read no further because I am sure you will see some in this blog.
2.  If it drives you nuts when someone is not grammatically correct then stop yourself now.  I am awful at grammar and make no attempts to pretend otherwise.
3.  If you have problems with honesty then close your eyes and stop reading because if I follow through with this it will be the raw and "mostly" unedited version of me.


I am not sure what this blog is suppose to be about except my journey I suppose... I hope that it will encourage hearts and maybe expose mine just a little bit to the world.