Greece

I, like many other people, have had my heart broken by the countless stories of death and tragedy that is occurring right now with the refugee crisis. I have wanted so badly to do something--but have been unsure of what to do as this crisis is unlike any other humanitarian crisis our world has seen to date. I'm bothered and angered by the responses I get---mostly the ones who say, "the problem is too big" and that's where they leave it--like it's just going to go away...or maybe if they don't think about it, they won't feel guilty about doing nothing.

I've heard people, mostly Americans, say it's Europe's problem. What they don't get is Europe doesn't even want them. Europe may not be as explicit in their language, but their actions have clearly shown their distaste for the refugees by building walls along their borders to prevent the refugees from getting in.

I hear of wonderful organizations feeding, clothing and giving medical aid to the refugees. I hear of the incredible Greek people who already have nothing giving out of their nothingness and I'm moved to tears. You see, it's so much easier to do nothing--but the Greeks are witnessing it first hand and they are moved to action because they see the faces of each man woman and child that comes to their shore and that moves them to action.

So, after lots of prayer and thinking and researching, I'm going to ask the question, "how can Greece use this opportunity to better its economy?" I have an idea...it's going to take a lot of hands and money, and this will not solve the whole refugee crisis, but maybe it's a start, at least for Greece.

Let start with the question, "What do the refugees need once they arrive in Greece?" Well, let's look at who they are. A Newsweek article says that an estimated 56% of Syrian refugees are under the age of 20--so they need schools.  The UN Refugee Agency, or the UNHCR, conducted a study between April 2015-September 2015 of refugees arriving in Greece. What they found is that 86% of the refugees they interviewed had a secondary or university level education--so they need jobs and they're educated. And of course, they need housing.

So, now, let's start with the Greek economy. It's is not good. A simple google search will show that their unemployment rate is at 24% and one in three homes is vacant---yes, some of those are vacation homes and secondary homes but I'm still including those in the numbers here. So, we know that Greece has a high unemployment rate and a lot of vacant homes...which gets me to my next point.

Greek housing prices are at an all-time low. A simple Google search shows that one can purchase a 10 bedroom apartment complex for 350,000 Euros or you can purchase a small one bedroom apartment for as little as 7,500 Euros (now, I know this is the very low end, but still!). There are many store fronts, office buildings, and industrial spaces for sale---place of business with no businesses in them--for really cheap.

Now, what if Greece created incentives for the Syrians to stay in Greece and open the storefronts, creating new businesses that employ the Greek people who need jobs so desperately? What if Greece used the vacant housing situation for the Syrian refugees so they can stay in a safe and warm home with a roof over their heads? What if Greece built more schools to so the Syrian children can get the education they so desire?

Now...I know this is a lot to ask of Greece, so now I want to ask the churches, businesses, and other organizations a question: what if you bought that one bedroom apartment for $7500 Euros and adopted a Syrian family, helping them with job training or finding a job or even help them open a new place of business? What if you gave that home to the Syrian family, giving them stability for the first time since they fled their home? What if you were able to change the life of one family or one person---and as a ripple effect, it changed the course of two countries? I'm talking not just about Greece but the future Syria. Now---what if you were able to buy a 10 bedroom apartment complex for 350,000 Euros and help 10 families? What kind of an impact would that make?

My hope is that this will create some dialogue and maybe spur some to action. Thanks for reading.

May my Failures Point them to You

As I was praying this morning, I was praying that God would give us a new vision for life that included our children. It dawned on me that the visions we were very generously given by God in the past, had room for our kids, but I had taken them out of it. Maybe it was because I didn't know how to incorporate them...or maybe...and quite possibly with more truth to it, but uglier to admit....it was because deep down, I wanted to do it all on my own. I wanted to manage and manipulate those visions to look like something that probably looked very different than what God had intended. I took those visions, got excited about them, and then tried to force them into a me-sized-box. In the end, when none of my forcing, squeezing, and manipulating worked, I felt like a failure. And then I looked at my kids and this fear began to grow inside of me. I feared that I had, through my selfishness and manipulativeness, damaged them for life.

As I dwell on this fear, I realize how many other parents have felt the same way about what they have done or how they have treated their children. How many of us have allowed that fear to permeate our lives, allowing it to take control of who we are as human beings...creating this vicious cycle of guilt, regret, and remorse? We walk through life in a continuous fog thinking back on all the ways we could have done it better or changed what we did...not realizing that we are doing the same thing we did earlier...it just looks different. It seems to be a vicious cycle.

While I'm thinking about this fear that has slowly creeped into my inner-self, I'm looking at pictures of my four kids, and I see their beautiful smiles smiling back at me. It dawns on me that each one of them knows that they are deeply and truly loved. Even though I may feel at times that I have screwed them up, what matters most in the end is that they know they are loved and accepted at the deepest level of their being...and I cannot fill that, only the love of Jesus can.

I will fail again and these fears will continue on...that is a guarantee, BUT through it all, I am so grateful! God is gracious and loving and forgiving. He knows me and loves me where I'm at! There is no damage I can do to any of my children that God cannot mend and for this I am so thankful! Thank you Jesus! I can point my children to You, but You call them and draw them to You. May my failures point them to You.

Scratching the Itch

I'm at a funny place right now. Funny may not be the right word...I'm just not sure what other word would be appropriate to describe right now.

Three years ago we moved back home with a goal. That goal was to find some land, learn the farming ropes, get involved with a human trafficking rescue organization and live in community with people as we farmed. This was where we believed God had called us. This was the ultimate scratch that would satisfy the itch we had been feeling for some time.

We moved back home. Check.

We got involved with a human trafficking organization. Check.

We quickly learned that what we wanted to do as rescuers was replacing our most important duties...being present parents to our 4 elementary school aged children, so we stopped. Uncheck.

We found a rental home on an acre where we could get some goats and chickens and somehow ended up with a llama. Check.

We learned how expensive the animal upkeep was and how mucking the stalls really wasn't all that glorious. Goats are heavy. When you trim their nails sometimes they step on you and it hurts. Milking them is a lot of work too...especially when your family doesn't like goat milk and you have more milk piling up in your freezer than you know what do with. One things for certain, I got really good at making ricotta...but even then, there's only so many recipes that call for that type of cheese! When the goats gave birth it was one of the most scary but exhilarating experiences of my life. They were supposed to be about 3 weeks apart but ended up going into labor on the same day. We started with 2 pregnant goats expecting them to have maybe one or two babies each. We ended up with one goat having triplets and the other having quadruplets. Mind you, we know nothing about goats. Thank you, Youtube, for teaching us everything we needed to know...like how to give a shot to a goat. How to castrate a goat. What a goat looks like in labor. How to cut the umbilical cord of a goat. How to milk a goat. How to de-horn a goat. How to butcher a chicken. Etc. After many tears (mostly from me...ok, all from me...) we came to the decision that farming may not be for us. Uncheck.

Now, here we are looking back over the last few years wondering what went wrong. We had these goals and truly believed that's where God was leading us. Reached the goals...but in the end, we failed miserably.

Looking back, I've tried to figure out what went wrong. Why did we fail? I think what I've come to conclude, is that the thing I lost sight of was where our kids fit in all of those goals and dreams. The goals and dreams in and of themselves weren't bad. It was not that we weren't following God's plan for our lives...it was more that we were going on this adventure and sort of dragging our kids along because, well, they were our kids. I got so wrapped up in what we were doing that I was missing out on being the mom our children needed. I wasn't seeing our kids as a gift from the Lord; I was seeing them as something holding me back. A burden. In the way of what I wanted to do. It was not pretty and I am not proud of it.

So, here I am, watching God strip another piece of yuck off of me that I am not proud of and it hurts! I see the ugliness and selfishness that is in me and I am disgusted and humbled, and I am reminded that God is not done with me yet. Thank you Jesus for being so patient with me! Thank you for your grace and mercy. Thank you for revealing to me the areas of my life that need to be molded and shaped into Your likeness only a little bit at a time and not all at once...for that would be overwhelming!

I thought the itch was something I needed to do, but I was wrong. I'm learning that the itch was actually someone I needed to become.....and that someone is Jesus. I will never be satisfied doing anything unless I am actively working toward becoming more like Christ. When I am actively working toward becoming more like Christ, I won't see my children as a burden or something that is holding be back from what I want to do. I will see them as the beautiful blessings they are and they will naturally become a part of the life journey God has called our family to.

Big Things Little Things

I always thought doing great things for God had something to do with being famous or doing something big for Jesus. Whether it be going to the ends of the earth to be a missionary or being martyred for preaching the Gospel; whether it be being an international speaker, writer of a best selling book or a worship leader of the largest church. This has been my definition of what the ultimate Christ follower was, as if it was something great to be achieved. Thus, I began to struggle with who I was and what I was doing. For years I fought this internal battle of feeling worthless and looking at what I was doing as not cutting it, because I wanted to be able to define myself as what I believed to be the "ultimate sold out Christian". These last few years have been eye-opening to me. I've journeyed through struggle and victory, frustration and peace and finally rest, knowing that what I am doing as a person really does not matter.

Let me explain myself. My whole life I have tried to define myself by what I do. In high school I was a youth leader, youth worship leader, and coach. That is how I viewed myself and what mattered to me. In college, all I could think of was marrying the love of my life. I was his and he was mine and that is who I was. When we got married and had a family, I was wife and mom. That is what I did and that is who I was. Later, we started working with a sex trafficking organization in town. I dug right in and began to define myself as the anti-sex trafficking activist. That was who I was and that was how I defined myself. Once we left that organization, we rented some land to start a community. We wanted to live off the land, raise some animals, and have a community of people around us who loved God and each other. It was all good, but then I began to define myself as that. I thought I was looking to God, but looking back, once I began to look at what we were doing and defined myself as the "farmer/caretaker/animal lover" and took my eyes off of God, it went from good to not good.

One lesson I am in the process of learning is that it does not matter what I do. What does matter is who I become. If I'm seeking the Lord every day and looking to Him for guidance, allowing Him to work in my heart and change me, then in the end, I will be made whole. I do not have to do big things for God in order to be a "good Christian". I do not need the world to pat me on the back and say, "well done!" I really do believe that God's view of big is not what we see as big. God sees the little things and those are bigger in His eyes that singing on stage at the largest church or writing a best selling book or speaking in front of thousands of people. There is a lot of freedom in that. I do not have to prove myself to anyone, nor do I have to prove myself to God. I can trust that God is teaching me and guiding me through life. I can know that He loves me.

MorFar & MorMor

Death is kind of a funny thing. No one likes to talk about it, yet it is one of those things in life in which no one can change.

For probably the last 10 years, we knew Morfar (my grandpa) was going to pass away. We often snickered behind my parent's back, mocking their, "Make sure you swing by and say goodbye to Morfar! We don't know how much longer we have with him." I probably said my final goodbyes to him hundreds of times. It wasn't until three weeks after he was put on hospice that I came by the house and I knew he was in his final moments. It hit me like nothing I had ever felt before. I had never lost anyone so close to me before.

I can remember going out of the room that afternoon all teary eyed and running into Mormor (my grandma). I asked her if she was ok. The absolute hell that woman must have been going through to see her husband of 62 years on his death bed! She was obviously trying so hard to be strong, but in that moment, she broke. She cried, "I have my moments." I remember crying into her chest as she held me. It was such a surreal moment; this wonderful, strong, loving woman, comforting me as I cried over the very real dawning that my dear grandpa, her husband, was going to be passing into the arms of Jesus very shortly. I wonder now how lonely those "moments" must have been for her.

That evening, my husband and I and our 4 kids went over to say our final goodbyes. I cried as each of my children kissed Morfar. I cried as Morfar looked into each one of their eyes and said, "I love you." There was never a doubt in my mind this man's love for his family. Hearing those final words to each one of my kiddos was a healing salve to my hurting heart.

Morfar and our daughter Kaitlyn had a really special bond. She was the one that would climb onto his lap and let him read to her. She was always the first one to run up to him and give him a hug. There were quite a handful of times during that evening he would look down at Kaitlyn and say, "Hello Kaitlyn." I can still hear him say those words.

Before we left, my husband turned around and gave Morfar a thumbs up. They smiled at each other and Morfar returned the thumbs up. He knew he was going to see Jesus face to face soon, and it was like they were saying a mutual, "See you on the other side."

The next evening Morfar had stopped communicating entirely. He was sleeping all the time now. I decided I should go over there one last time. I'm glad I did. One of the most powerful moments of my life happened that evening. It would be my last memory of my grandma and grandpa alive together. Morfar was having a coughing attack. I realized Mormor was in the room with him by herself, so I went in there to see if I could help with anything. I peeked in the room and there was Mormor taking Morfar's face in her hands and lovingly pleading with him, "You can go home now. I will be ok. Go to Jesus. I will be ok."

I kissed his forehead that night and said, "I love you," for the last time before I left.

The next morning was February 14th, 2014. Valentines Day. Morfar got to see his Savior. His passing was not a shock. We were expecting it. It was hard and sad, but we knew he was more alive than ever before.

Mormor made it two weeks and got through the funeral and burial. Then a few more days passed. She was home alone, walking outside to get the mail when she had a heart attack. She flagged down some neighbors that were walking by, then called the ambulance for help. She was rushed to the hospital where they opened up her clogged artery with a balloon.

She was still in the hospital, getting ready to be released to go to cardio rehab on March 10, 2014 when she suddenly had a major stroke. This beautiful, strong, loving woman passed away that same afternoon. As she breathed her last breathes, I echoed her words to her, "It's ok, you can go now. I love you." She died a few minutes after that.

I wish I could explain why it seemed so much easier saying goodbye to someone I expected to go. Yes it was extremely difficult to say goodbye to Morfar, but I was prepared. It was expected. I did not anticipate the agony my heart would feel to see Mormor on her death-bead. She was strong. She had more years left in her. She was not supposed to go yet.

I've heard it said that when you loose someone you've been with for so many years, when they pass away, it feels like a major amputation. I believe it.

Their love for the Lord and their love for each other was a testimony to everyone they came into contact with. Each and everyone of their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids knew that they were dearly loved by Mormor and Morfar. Each and every one of us knew that Mormor and Morfar prayed for us every day. We knew that Mormor and Morfar were proud of us, not because of the things we had accomplished but because of who we were. They saw us as blessings from God and treated us as such. They were shoulders we cried on, listening ears when we needed one, they were prayer warriors and servant-hearted, they were teachers of art, sewing, rope knotting, jokes, songs and history. They are missed. They left this world a better place.

They had no monetary inheritance to leave behind, but what they did leave behind was an imprint much greater and of much more value than money. They left behind 3 generations of children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren; all of whom knew they were loved dearly, prayed for daily, and treasured immeasurably.

You can let go

Child of mine, stop and listen to my voice. Do you hear me? As you stand there gazing at the beauty I created for you, do you hear the rustling of the leaves? Do you hear the bird chirping in the distance? Do you hear the crashing of the ocean waves? Stop and listen.

Child of mine, stop and feel my presence. Do you feel me? I’m in the breeze that kisses your face. I’m in the snow flake that melts in your hand. I’m in the sunbeam that warms your back. I’m in the frost that freezes your nose. Stop and feel.

Child of mine, stop and see me. Do you see me? I’m in the daisy that sits in full bloom drinking in the sunrays. I’m in the rainbow shining through the misty rain. I’m in the towering, snow-covered mountains. I’m in the rushing river and trickling brook. Stop and see.

Child of mine, you try too hard. You try too hard to impress those around you. You try too hard to be someone I did not create you to be. You try too hard to make the money you feel you deserve so that you can have the life you think you want. Rest, for I am here to bring you rest.

Child of mine, you worry too much. You worry too much about what tomorrow will bring. You worry too much about how your kids will turn out. You worry too much about what you will wear, eat, and drive. You worry too much about what kind of house you will live in and what career you will have. You worry too much about correct theology and whether everyone else is doing it right. Stop, for you can trust me.

Stop and let me be your guide. I am in control. The world is in my hands, you can let go.

Take Care of Yourself

I remember talking to a mom a couple of months ago who has two older sons. She was complaining about how she didn’t get her nap in that day and honestly, I wanted to reach out and slap her! But, I controlled myself and muttered mean things under my breath as I walked away from that conversation. You see, I have not had a nap in probably two years. Ever since my now 4-year-old daughter refused to take naps as soon as she turned 2. The conversation inside of my head went something like this, “What the heck lady! You’re complaining about not getting your daily nap today?!? How about not getting that peaceful restful nap for 2 years? Come on! You Suck.”

Now, I know my attitude was not the greatest. Ok, I was the one who sucked that day (that probably would have been a good time to grab a pen and paper and begin writing the things I’m thankful for). But really, something I did come away from that conversation with was an excuse that worked for me. Out of that conversation, I realized that it had been so long since I had taken a nap and that I was literally jealous of this lady. Something was not right. I knew something in my life had to change.

One of the most difficult things for me to do as a mom is take care of myself. With a husband, 4 children, a puppy, 2 pregnant goats, a llama, and 12 chickens running around, I kind of have my plate full. I do not have time to take a nap, and I tend to feel guilty when I do take some extra time for myself.  

Guilty. I think this is a very common feeling for moms. A mom may feel guilty because she is so tired and worn out that the only energy she has for that particular day is to feed her kids when they’re hungry. Or, a mom may feel guilty because she left her baby to cry in their crib a bit longer than normal because she just needed to sit in silence. Some moms feel guilty leaving their kids with a babysitter. Other moms feel guilty because they can never find a babysitter, so they’re always bailing out on plans at the last minute.

There are a lot of moms out there who are dying inside because they are so tired. They walk around in their sweat pants and holy shirts all day, just getting by, themselves. A mom needs to be able to have it be ok to take a shower. A mom needs it to be ok to sleep in late one morning. A mom needs it to be ok to be able to go out alone or with a friend to sit and enjoy a cup of coffee or a good book (by ALONE I mean “without kids”). Dads listen to me: your wife needs you to give her the ok to go out and be a woman! She will be a much better wife and mom when she takes the time to take care of herself.

By “taking care of yourself”, I don’t mean stop taking care of you family. I’m talking here to the moms who have a hard time putting down their children so they can have their own basic needs met. I’m also speaking to the moms who are so overwhelmed with mommyhood, that they don’t know how to make time for themselves to get out of the house ALONE. I’m speaking to the moms out there who do not feel beautiful because their lives are so wrapped around their children, they do not make time to feel beautiful. These are the moms I want to reach and encourage.