Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

Anne Frank

Ping Pong Ball

It has been a long time since I last wrote. So I guess I am going to just dive right in.

Teaching tonight was amazing. I loved it. I love it when I learn from teaching. The basic concept of the lesson was when you look in a mirror and see dirt on your face you wash it off. When we look in the bible and see the dirt in our lives we need to wash it off. If we hear it but don't change it is the same as walking around with dirt on your face (Read about Josiah in 2 kings and James 1:22-25 it changes everything). I wasn't sure if the kids understood and was feeling pretty discouraged when we finally asked if anyone can tell me what I'm talking about, and two of the girls repeated the lesson with great understanding. I was so happy. They were restless and wanted to play so it didn't look like they were listening but they really did hear what we were saying. I'm really excited we are putting God's word into action. Next week the kids are going to go teach a bible story of their choice to a younger class. Amazing, these kids are getting a chance to spread God's love by just taking the time to teach and hang out with a younger generation.

Then came service. Guest speaker Bill Randall spoke about guess what... honor. Appropriate I thought given that we are in a series called Honor: the lost virtue. It was really good. He talked about who we should honor, why we should honor them, and how we can honor even when being dishonored. It was great when he spoke about not following a leader or a person in order to honor God. So many people demand honor. Usually the people who are demanding it are less and less deserving of it.

Through this whole series I am struggling on how to honor. My family is broken in every way imaginable. I have been searching for a father my whole life. When I found my stepfather, I wanted to honor, love, and respect him in every way possible but he took this sacred joy of fatherhood and turned into nothing that resembles a father. Years later after I had rebuilt my life my father came crashing back into my life only for me to discover he doesn't want or care about me.

So this is my question, this is my quest. How do I honor a person like this? Or my mother who has always been so focused on her and what she wants, that she allowed him to do this to our family over and over again and if he called tomorrow she would go to him. How can I honor her? I understand why, because even with these faults they carry the image of God. Trust me I see this in them, that is why I care so much. They are family, I love them, if I didn't this wouldn't be as hard. How do I through all the pain and brokenness still honor them. What does that even look like?

So my first blog back in a while pretty heavy. I feel like a ping pong ball. From high to low and now I'm just lost.

Issues (aka Think About It)

So I realized I will never be able to do this for six whole days. So maybe I can squeez like three into one


The first issue I wanted to cover was Health Care.


We are so blessed in the US because we have things like free education, freedom of speech, and freedom of religon, the list goes on and on. We are blessed.


We have these things because we consider them basic human rights that our citizens are entitled to. It doesn't matter what race, income level, religion, or gender is you have these rights. We believe that every person has the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Why then do we suddenly not think that health care is a basic human right? Why does this become a commodity? Yes you can live if you pay up this much money that you don't have otherwise you would have health insurance. And no the emergency room is not a health care plan. All doctors will agree that finding something early is what saves lives, whether it be cancer, infection, neurological, what ever it is. And if it isn't an emergence (meaning to late for finding it early) you don't go to an emergency room. We need to do better, we can not ask children to suffer while we sit by and do nothing except argue.



Second Issue is The Economy



On this Obama has my support 110%. We can not let the trickle down theory rule anymore. Greed grips our society and lets nothing trickle down. Now I am not a great scholar or do I really understand economics to the fullest but simple math I've got down. If you have big debt you need to do two things: spend less and make more. It is the make more our country seems to have a problem with. The only way to clear this debt is to create more revenue we do that in the form of taxes. Those with the most should pay more. That is why we use income tax, the more you make the more you pay. Now everyone is saying that Obama's tax plan will put out small businesses. Not true, he is simply taking us back to the same policies we had under Clinton. When our economy flourished and we had a surplus instead of a deficit. I didn't know we were all socialist under Clinton.

The last issue is Sarah Palin.

This should not be even an issue. The race for the vice president has never been so important before. There are three reasons why this race is different: John McCain's health, his selection process, and how dumb she is. In this last administration we saw how much difference a VP can make. Bush's legacy would be much different if had chosen someone other that Dick Cheney. John McCain's pick would not be as important if he was in better health or had transparency about his health. If we are electing John McCain I want to know he is able to serve the full term to the best of his ability, if his health makes him unable to do so than his successor is extremely important. I want to believe that McCain took the time to meet Sarah and get to know her and what she believed. So I don't think it is like what some of the talking heads say was only one 15min phone call. But I don't think he did extensive research and took all candidates into consideration because there much better suited candidates in the republican party to choose from. In choosing Palin as a running mate McCain says I believe in her and what she stands for like she believes in me and what I stand for. Well the women he choose though believes that banning books is okay, that rape victims should have to pay for their own trauma kit and that people who bomb abortion clinics aren't terrorist. She can't name a newspaper she reads, doesn't know of any other supreme court decisions other than roe vs wade and says "you betcha" on a televised debate. Yes I'd like to identify with the leaders of our country but do I want an uneducated redneck "six pack" Jane with the nuclear codes. Nope. That may be okay with John McCain but not me.

My point was. Yes he is younger, maybe could use more experience, and have big ideas. But does John McCain's age make him better, his experience is working against him, and his lack of creative ideas is holding him back. Plus I am young, may need more experience and have big ideas, so I identify with Barack Obama, and hopefully he will be my president.

I know this was way too long so I want to leave you with the gift of humor

Seven Days and Counting

I love politics. I love leaning about the issues, hearing other peoples views and of course I love telling people about mine. Unfortunately for me I am a true blue to the core Democrat and I live in a very republican area. Sometimes I feel like I need to scratch out my eyes before I see another McCain Palin sticker.

So it is no wonder that I will be voting for Barack Obama. I think it is important though when discussing politics to not only say who or what you are voting for but why.

First let me say Barack was not my first choice. My vote was for John Edwards, put aside the adultery, and look at the issues he is the only candidate whose focus was poverty and the all but disappearance of the middle class. Remember this was before the great bailout. With John Edwards out of the running it was a hard choice for me between Barack and Hillary. Her stances and Baracks stances are very similar. She had more experience but he was not jaded in the same way she was. He will make changes, she may make changes. So with that said I back Barack 175%.

I plan to go over 6 issues in the next 6 days. Not to change anyone's mind, but to simply share mine. Plus the other great half is I want to know what others think. I love hearing reasoning though, I hate that well Barack is a terrorist crap. He is not grow up, get a brain. There are logical reasons to support McCain, I get that lets hear them.

Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.
~ Margaret Mead

Single Moms

At The Stirring we are planning a single moms day and last night we met for a meeting with Dan to plan everything out. I am so excited about serving single moms in our community. I come from a single mom family and I know how much need there is to be filled.

Right now what we plan to do is have the moms drop of their cars and kids and while they go out to lunch with some other moms the kids and the cars get pampered. This is great. One day where it is about them. I have some fun crafts that we can do and I am trying to think about games for the kids.

We were talking about having a long lasting relationship with the moms we meet and I totally agree, but what about the kids. Shouldn't we also be serving the kids without dads. So maybe the next thing we should be talking about is hooking up some of these kids who need a fatherly influence. Right now the kids we are looking at are 2 or 3 years old. But that is a perfect time to start a bond. If I had had 1 person try and be a father it would have made a huge difference in my life.

All my life I have longed for a father. I mean desperately searching for a father. Finally after a while I realized God is the one TRUE father, and I could rest assured in that. But this was a life long journey to come to that. My mother tried to leave my biological father before I was born and was finally successful when I was about one. She met the man I knew as my father when I was three, I asked him if I could call him dad because I was searching for that connection even at three. Honestly, he failed in every way possible of being a father. So I continued to search, just over a year ago my "father" was released from prison. I thought maybe now he would be a that father I longed for. No, he was not. So I continued to search. There are days when I break down into tears in the kitchen crying out to God "all I have ever asked for is a father." It was very hard to embrace God as a father for me but he is.

So lets take Gods example and father the fatherless. Lets take care of the children. Lets follow Christ with the way we live our lives.

Take Action

I don't usually write about my thoughts on The Stirring services, not because I don't want to just because I don't usually remember to do it in a timely fashion and then it seems a bit weird to write about something that happened two weeks ago.

At the end of the service this Sunday Nate called up people to be prayed for and I am always tempted to step forward but I never do (too many reasons to list here). As people came forward and Nate continued to pray the band began to play. I stood there in my row and prayed and I stopped to really listen to God and as I did the band became quiter and the voices of people praying around us got louder. These prayers were being lifted up above the music. It was so moving to hear all these diffrent voices all these diffrent prayers being lifted up to God that I started to cry.

I've never really been one to pray in public or for people. I don't know "how" to pray I guess you could say. Anyways I'm not confident that God will speak through me and so I don't usually. But on Sunday it was crystal clear that I am to start praying for people. I can not stay silent, I can not let my insecurites stand in the way. Nate was talking about how there is a war for the people around us and I don't understand how I can stand still, how can I not be sent into action for the ones that I love.