One Question, Six Voices: Lent Week Four

This week's Lenten question from Rethink Church:

Where are you encountering Jesus in the unlikeliest of places? #spirituality

The past couple of months, Gavin has been struggling with some anxiety, especially with new people and/or new places. We're pretty sure it has everything to do with starting kindergarten in the fall. We've been talking it up a lot at home, his teachers and friends have been talking about it a lot at daycare, and I think my poor guy is just getting more anxious the more we talk about it.

It manifested at his Taekwondo classes a few months ago when a new boy talked to him. He didn't know him, he didn't want to talk to him, and he lost it, running over to me with fear in his eyes, unable to articulate why he was so upset. Since then, it's been a slow road helping him get up the courage every Monday and Wednesday to participate, especially if that means someone new might talk to him, someone new might teach him, or something new might happen during class.

He's doing great, and I'm so thankful we've got this experience to lean on when kindergarten comes in the fall and these same fears creep up for him again. But I'm even more thankful for the community of people who've helped him (and us) through the struggle of the last few months.

A counselor friend created a plan to help us work through his fears, even more friends prayed for him every Monday and Wednesday night, other parents encouraged him during class and cheered him on when he did a good job, friends and co-workers asked how he was doing, a class helper gave him a medal "just for being brave." The list could go on for a good long while.

They're people who love him, people who care about him—even people who barely know him—but all of those people have been Jesus in the flesh for him. The unexpected part in all of that is not that these friends and strangers reached out to a kid who was struggling, but that they went out of the way to help him in his struggle. They looked outside of themselves.

Because of their kindness, because of their love...he's been able to get past some of his fears, and as small as those things may sound, their actions have made a monumental difference in our lives.

Gavin and his buddy Jacob, who encourages him at every class. 

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This post is one of six points-of-view on the same topic. Check out what my friends think of this week's question on their blogs: Shawn, Heather, Steph, Brian and Julia.

Thankful

I have so much to be thankful for.  So much, in fact, that it’s hard to write a post on thankfulness, especially after just coming back from Russia.  I see our excess here—ads screaming at us to BUY ALL THE THINGS! and it’s contrasted by the barrenness of the lives I’ve connected with there, halfway across the world.

I recently heard the quote: “What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for today?”  With that in mind, here is my thankful list:

My Faith

I'm thankful for a God who loves me in spite of myself, and that believing in something bigger than me humbles me when I need it most.


My Family

Those who raised me, married me, and made me a mother.  I thank you for your constant encouragement, unfailing love and uncanny ability to put up with my shit.  And to my “family” who is not biologically family, including 40-some orphans in Russia—thank you for expanding my heart to include more than I knew it could hold.

My Friends

Those I lost long ago, those I'm still close with, and those I've yet to meet.  Thank you for letting me cry when I needed to, for making me laugh out loud when I needed that more, and for your general awesomeness.      

My Career
I'm so thankful for my job.  Not just that I have one, especially in this economy, but that I get to work on product every day that makes people smile, brings people closer together and adds a little meaning to their lives.  


Happy Thanksgiving, everyone.  May yours be as richly blessed as mine.

Russia Recap: The Kids

People, I went to Russia at 5 months pregnant.  Who does that?  That’s the question I got before I left, while I was there and once I got back.  Once I got home, I found myself asking the same question, and I can’t believe I actually did it. 

But when I really stop and think about it, it’s not a surprise at all.  Last year, the trip ruined me.  I came home forever changed because of the people I met and the lives I was so privileged to touch.  Maybe it was because I was looking outside of my own world and doing something bigger than myself.  Maybe it’s because God used me to love on some kids who desperately needed love and acceptance.   Whatever it was, those kids stormed into my heart and set up camp last year.  How could I not go back?

Last year, my purpose for the trip was to meet Nastya, the little girl we sponsor through Children’s HopeChest.  Ryan and I had sponsored kids before through other organizations, but we sent our check every month and that was that.  This was an opportunity to actually meet this little person and get to know her.  It was an opportunity to actually become a part of her life. 

What I hadn’t expected was the bond I would form not only with Nastya, but a dozen or so other kids at the orphanage.  These kids are so hungry for love, and so desperate for someone to know them and remember them that bonds formed quickly and deeply.  I’d fallen in love with them and knew my life was forever changed. 

Still, I left the orphanage last year wondering if I’d made any real difference for them.  I only spent six days there, and they were still orphans, after all.  They’d been abandoned, abused, and neglected most of their lives.  And their future didn’t look that rosy either, not with society saying that they’re unworthy, unlovable and unwanted.  How could six measly days change anything in their world?

This year, I saw just what a difference six days can make.  Because we’ve consistently sent a team to spend six days with these kids every single year, they’ve come to trust us, and that’s a big deal for a kid who’s been let down his or her whole life.  It doesn’t matter that our team changes members or that we do different activities every year—what matters is that we are there consistently, every year, telling them they’re important and loved and that they matter.  What matters is that we remember them. 

Because I told these kids they were important to me, it suddenly made them feel like they were important in the world.  Little comments I made about how tall they’d gotten or how much their hair had grown acknowledged their existence.  Nowhere else can they see themselves through the passage of time, except through our eyes, and the photos we leave behind of them.

I knew I'd been changed when I came home last year, but I didn't entirely realize what had happened until I went back.  When I gave up my PTO at work, left my husband and child for ten days, used savings for an expensive trip—I'd sacrificed.  And because of that sacrifice, my reality shifted.  My friend, Steph says it well when she says, "it's eternal love manifesting in our world."  Because I was willing to sacrifice, God was able to use me to make a difference to a group kids halfway across the world.