September is blog month at Compassion International.
Compassion is opening my eyes… and my children’s eyes.
I never thought much about sponsorship… until I did. It changed everything… for two children… and then for six more, and this mom.
Colossians 3:12
Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.
Dear God,
This suddenly makes You so much more real to me. Writing a letter, putting words on paper… I only do that with the people I love, the ones I can touch. Writing this letter makes me realize with a jolt… that You are so very real. I spend so much time thinking about You, speaking to You (mostly in my mind… though I am learning to speak out loud. Speaking out loud just makes You more real to me. I’m not one to talk out loud to no one, after all). I spend time talking with my kids, my husband, my friends, my parents… about You. I have written about You so many times. I wonder why I have never written to You? I read what You have written to me. I suppose You might enjoy a letter, too. Real words about real love.
The words come a bit more slowly this way. Funny how I am laboring to say just the right thing… hoping I will somehow impress You, make You love me more, see me for who I am. The words I write… I want them to show You how well I can put words together, but I suddenly gather that You care more about how well I can put Your words together. What have You told me in Your letters to me? So many lessons, so much Fatherly advice, direction, instruction. Love. That’s it. The message in all of Your letters. Love. You want me to love You, and You show me how… by loving me. You are doing a much better job than I am. Then there’s the other part… loving others… more than myself. You, better job, again. I really want to be more like You.
You have lovingly taken me along my path in life and picked me up when I failed ~ even when I didn’t know I was failing. You pointed me in the right direction, again, gave me a pat on my back… words of encouragement… and Your love. You gave me a most incredible husband, and are showing me how to get through the messy selfishness in marriage. You gave me six kids! That’s a lot of kids. I never dreamed…
You gave me a desire to love my six pack of kids so much that I would place You directly in their sights. This was all a bit foreign to me, but You nudged me along and whispered words of encouragement when I doubted. You have touched me.
One night, while I was up too late… You opened my eyes. You opened my eyes to small faces on a screen… after I had tucked my six small faces into their warm beds. You opened my eyes to the need behind the young eyes. A need I had pushed into the background of my mind ~ assuming someone out there would take care of them. Somebody out there had to notice. Suddenly I started to cry like I hadn’t cried in quite a while. I realized I was the someone out there who needed to notice…
Their names are Elie and Myrlande. They live in Haiti. My kids were so excited when we printed out their pictures from the Compassion sponsor page that they went running to Daddy, as he walked in the door at the end of the day. Two more kids! I couldn’t believe the joy we felt. It was surreal. Like we had just reached out across the waters… and touched them.
We pray for them every day. The greatest thing is… my little ones pray for them before I can even get the words out. We have prayed for them especially now after Hurricane Isaac swept across Haiti.
Letters. Writing letters. I write to people I love, the ones I can touch. How odd that I haven’t written to You before. You are touching every part of my life, of my husband’s life, my children’s lives… Elie and Myrlande’s lives. That’s it! It’s how You want me to touch their lives! You touch us as we touch each other… with love. A love greater than that for ourselves. The words are beginning to come more easily now…
You want us to love with more than words… more than speech. You want us to love with action… with truth.
Thank you, God, for letting me come to You. For blessing me. For blessing my husband and my children. Thank You for using us to bless.
We are blessed to be a blessing.
Thank you for Your words… thank you for loving us with your Word.
All my love,
1 John 3:18
Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth.
New photos on our wall.
The week painting our kitchen and den ~ a fulfilling task while my warrior was away for a training exercise.
Mom, can I help?
Pleading eyes… asking for just a chance…
Hmm, maybe just a little.
Painting, decorating, arranging photos are my greedy tasks… I enjoy the finished product… and give myself a little pat on the back when I am done. These questioning young eyes want a chance to get in the game… they want to be a part of this… to have just one chance…
Ok
I smile… knowing the joy these helpful hands will feel… just to have been a part of this… to make a difference… to see the change.
Rooms painted, photos fresh from a beach vacation carefully placed… I grin… the young eyes light up ~ the work completed. The beautiful outcome. The faces of my young children peering from photographs… beautiful young faces.
What if these photos had a different background? What if there were no vacations? What if my children had a different background? What if they had been born in a different place? A different zip code? A place of different opportunities? A place with little… or no opportunities? A place with few helping hands? A place praying for more helping hands? What if…
We gather at the computer… our speedy Mac, that takes us anywhere in seconds.
Can we look at their pictures?
Mama, can we help?
I smile…
Maybe just a little
it may be just a little for us… but so much more for them…
We click… we see…
Pleading eyes… asking for just a chance…
The faces we see… like my own, but different…
These questioning young eyes want a chance to get in the game… they want to be a part of this… to have just one chance…
My young ones, drawn in by the faces, the places, the stories…
Mama, can we help?
I smile… knowing the joy these helpful hands will feel… just to have been a part of this… to make a difference… to see the change.
The beautiful outcome
We click… two times. Their names are Myrlande and Elie. They live in Haiti. My children pray for them, they think of them, they write to them. They realize just a little bit more… the blessings we have are blessings to be shared.
September is Official Blog Month at Compassion International. The goal is to find sponsors for 3,108 children in the month of September. For $38 per month, a child will receive opportunity…
these children served by Compassion receive, among other things: the opportunity to hear the gospel and learn about Jesus; regular Christian training; educational opportunities and help; health care, hygiene training, and supplementary food if necessary; a caring and safe Christian environment to grow in self-confidence and social skills; personal attention, guidance and love.
I look at these opportunities and see what my own children receive… without having to ask. For the cost of a toy, a Wii game, a new pair of shoes… these kids… with different zip codes… receive ~ a chance.
Will you go there? Take a look at these beautiful faces… with the questioning eyes… these faces that pray so much for just one chance…
Will you join us to pray for them?
Will you consider sponsoring just one child?
Girlfriends.
What would we do without them?
Before I was married, I would sit with my closest girlfriends and talk endlessly about our dreams… our thoughts of the future. What would our husbands be like, how many kids would we have, where would our careers go…?
Girlfriends are the place we can talk about our wildest dreams, our deepest insecurities, our darkest fears, our mortifying moments, our ugliest secrets… real girlfriends. We count ourselves blessed to have one good one in this life. Girlfriends… they are the joy-sharers, hug-givers, laugh-til-you-cry partners… they pick you up when your legs buckle beneath you.
They are the place our heavy hearts… our weary minds… our tired spirits ~ can be washed clean… with laughter and tears.
I used to think, before I was married, that as soon as my wonderful husband whisked me away to the beautiful life of wife and mama… my girlfriends would be a need in the rearview mirror. I would love them no less… just that I would need them no more. I don’t know why I dismissed the importance of these very friendships that fill a special place that only other women can fill in the heart of a woman.
I didn’t grow up with sisters. God, infinitely wise and giving, gave me four daughters instead. In my younger years, my girlfriends were my sisters.
Only as I get older do I understand and appreciate what that means.
I see now.
Of course, life as a wife to my warrior and mama to my six pack is beyond blessing…
The thing is ~ it is the blessing of these sisters that keeps me sane.
Those times when my last nerve is a bungee cord for my little ones… when no girlfriend can be found to smother the burning temper inside… I have muttered to my husband…
You’re going to have to be my girlfriend for a minute
Eyes wide, his brow breaks a sweat
oh no
He has grown to appreciate the gift of mama’s girlfriends… almost as much as I have.
The voice of a dear sister on the line
can you have a glass of wine tonight?
This wise husband of hers placed the phone in her hand…
call her
(I am pretty sure he was praying that his wife’s girlfriend would jump at the chance…)
We need each other. Our men know this.
The times when I was solitary… a new person, in a new place, with new babies… these were the times I realized what these sisters really mean.
When I opened my eyes to God, when I realized His love, when I finally began to pay attention… that’s when I prayed. I prayed for sisters. God-given girlfriends. These kindred sister souls… bearing the burdens, sharing this walk, keeping it real… offering wine and chocolate, just when we need it the most.
A prayer for my daughters… and my sons (because they need these kindred souls ~ just as much)…
a prayer for one good friend in this life (or a good handful) whose focus points up…
1 John 4:11
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Seasons of grief.
Doesn’t it seem like there are seasons in life filled with grief? One story follows another, and we wonder…
how much more?
The grief is not always right at our doorstep…
sometimes it is only a few steps away…
sometimes we are bystanders ~ standing on the sidelines of pain
sometimes our feet cross the line… we are on the field… the sorrow is ours to share.
My season began in March. She was one of my closest… one of a small handful… she knew the one I had been before… and the one I am now.
You know, the kind of friend who remembers who you were before you took on the titles of Mrs. and Mama.
I remember who she was then, too, before she became Mrs. and Mama.
I crossed the line onto the field of grief. I didn’t pay much attention to the ones on the sidelines. I knew they were there. Praying. My warrior, my babies, my friends… It brought comfort. The prayers eased the weight on this heart.
I remember the day she called me… filled with tears… fears. They didn’t know how far the cancer had spread yet. In hindsight, they had it all wrong anyway. Three years she lived that life… she didn’t want to be defined by that word.
She grew in her faith. I suppose she could have turned the other way…
I thank Him every day that she turned to Him ~ not away.
All the conversations we had once upon a time… they all turned to Him now. By His grace ~ her faith grew… until she went home to Him in March.
Another…
A warrior friend. We would receive words from him while he battled for life. The amazing words from him were filled with hope, love, praises for God’s goodness. While his body faltered… fell to the disease… his faith grew. His spiritual strength he poured into the words he shared. His one question… left as a reminder to us, still here…
We were but spectators of family grief. Offering what we had. Prayer. Presence.
Again…
A godly woman. Wife to a God-serving, country-serving man. Mother to a six pack of her own. The story itself brings Job to mind. The burdens just too much for one man to bear. A loving wife passing into the arms of a Savior, six small children ~ a little one suffering illness herself, a loving father taking on everything he can hold… struggling to reach the top of the water… just to breathe.
The grief, the sorrow, the struggle ~ observed from the sidelines.
That’s just when it is time. Time to step across into the grief. That place we don’t want to be. That season we fear.
Grief taken on… to shoulder the burden together.
If He had wanted us to be islands… He would have made us islands…
Wise words from this man, who by God’s mercy, has not crumbled under his sorrow.
I think of this season. Puzzled by a flicker of joy. The chance to provide help… blessed to be a blessing.
The joy perhaps a sense of His arms wrapping around? Him using us to show His presence… His love… His yoking with us in this walk.
The thing about grief… no matter how far you find yourself from the line ~ whether caught on the field in a blur of pain, or on the sidelines, observing the swell of sorrow ~ the thing is… we are all in this. We are not islands.
We are meant…
to be present for each other…
to provide for each other…
to pray for each other.
Matthew 11:28-30
Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Hi! My name is Karin Madden. Writer. Warrior wife. Mom of six pack. Homeschooler. German-blooded southerner. Welcome to the place where I explore what it means to grow stronger - spirit, soul, and body. I write to inspire and encourage - to remind you we are not alone. By being bold with grace and speaking truth in love, we can become who we are meant to be. I'm glad you are here.