.You May Say That I'm a Dreamer.

But I'm not the only one.

I will always be a dreamer with fire in my eyes and a passion in my heart - a heart that bleeds for people. Sometimes it feels far more like a curse than the gift that it was created to be. And today my heart bleeds and aches because it seems like so many people are hurting. I am so ashamed to admit that many people are hurting at the hands of Jesus followers. This confuses me. I thought we were the ones to bring Good News? I thought we were to bring peace, grace, mercy, and LOVE?

Many, many years ago when Jesus walked this earth, incarnated into our lives, and demonstrated exactly how we should live, He had a fascinating conversation with a Pharisee. (A religious, pompous, hypocritical legalistic leader of His day - hard to imagine anyone like this, huh? ahem.) The Pharisee was trying to trip Jesus up with a question. The answer Jesus gave sums up all of life for a Jesus follower - every single thing hangs on this answer. Everything. Everything we believe, how we act, what we say, how we live. Every. single. thing. The question was brief and housed in trickery and mockery, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law? Matthew 22:36  

Jesus' answer was simple.

 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’  This is the first and greatest commandment.  And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’  All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. Matthew 22:37-40

Love God. 

Love people.

Everything springs out of this. That's it. If we continually go back to these two things, and let love for God and for all people dictate the way we live out this one life, then we are serving God exactly the way Jesus expects us to serve Him, and we are living our lives in obedience to Jesus.

The Pharisees were extremely proud in their religiosity and morality. They held strictly to the religious laws and rules. They made rules for their rules in order to avoid any possibility of breaking them. But inside the rules, the legalism, the piety, the pointing fingers, they lost sight of the plank in their own eyes - they lost sight of their call to love, and even sadder is the fact that they lost sight of Who they love.

Our heart is central - we are to focus on loving God with a love that stems from our heart - everything we have and are - with our entire being. We should be so wrapped up in love and adoration for our God, that it is outrageously noticeable to everyone around us. When we do that, we are freed to love people with that same crazy kind of love that makes people question how and why and where this love is from. It can't help but point to our Jesus. Every time one of my four children disobeys, or needs some redirection, we talk through the two greatest commandments, because seriously everything, everything goes back to these. Try it. Try living out these two commands, and notice how it impacts all of life.

I am dreaming of a world where Jesus followers are known by a great big love that points to our great, big God. I am dreaming of a world where Jesus followers follow Jesus in His example of loving people - all people - the misfits, outcasts, outlaws, sinners, the sick, the lonely, the imperfect, the invisible. I am dreaming of a world where we are known by our love. (John 13:35)

It sounds a lot like the Kingdom that Jesus was constantly talking about. A Kingdom filled with love. Can you imagine? I'm going to keep dreaming.

Please tell me I'm not the only one.

.Cadi's Story.

She is so much like me when it comes to writing. I find her stories scattered around the house, so much like the stories I used to write as a little girl. She is filling up her first journal, and I admit I have taken a peek, and she is a deep thinker with an old soul. I love this about my Cadi. However, this particular story disturbed me so much, that I had to write about it in order to process it. Here is what she wrote:

Alice Gives

by Cadi

Alice! Mommy called. Time to go to church.

No. said Alice.

Now. said Mommy.

But Mommy, Janie makes fun of me.

Janie? said Mommy questioningly. I thought Janie was your best friend.

She is, but our family is black and her family is white. She doesn't like black people. So she makes fun of me.

Well, I will talk to Janie's parents when we go to church, okay Hon?

Okay. said Alice.

Wait. I have to get something. said Alice.

Janie always liked this doll of mine. Her name is Anna. I will give it to her at church.

Good for you. said Mommy. Good for you!

Such a short, simple story, but it broke my heart. Because, although the characters have been changed, I know my Cadi has experienced rejection from a girl "friend" because she has two black brothers. What bothers me so much is that, although we are all born as sinners, from all that I have experienced, understand, and researched, children are taught racism and prejudice, primarily by their parents. So this little girl, in 2013, is growing up in a Christian home, and whether through spoken teachings or simply actions, is being taught at the very least, that black people are inferior to white people.

And I am just wondering how we can reach the world with the gospel of Jesus when our children are being taught such lies?

We are all made in God's image. I have stated that so many times here, and it is something so close to my heart. When we look at people and see the image of Almighty God it should propel us to love. One thing, I think, we followers of Jesus, fail to recognize, is that we are all made in the image of God - made. That means we are born in the image of God - every single person shares some traits of our Heavenly Father. Every person.

yes, that homeless bum on the street,

yes, that prostitute selling her body on the corner,

yes, that disabled child confined to a wheelchair,

yes, our black president,

yes, the cashier at the grocery store,

yes, your child's teacher,

yes, the mailman,

yes, that man on death row.

They all bare the image of God! 

When we stop and look at people through that lens it should change everything. Our family has been told so many times that racism and prejudices no longer exist in our country. I can say through shaking lips and tear-filled eyes, that they absolutely do exist, and they exist right in our own churches. Perhaps it is not as overt as it once was, but that does not make it any less damaging, any less sinful, any less hurtful.

My eyes are being opened to things I would have rather stayed blind to. It is horrible to see this kind of hate from the world, let alone fellow followers of  Jesus, toward my beloved children/family. It hurts to see how the Church has perpetuated this lie, and how destructive it is.

A few months back we were talking with Habi in the van on the way home from somewhere. He was absolutely astonished to learn that Jesus is not white. We explained how he probably looked more middle Eastern - dark complexioned, dark hair - probably even similar coloring to our Jamesy. Habi was dumbstruck, as he had been fed the American lies, by American mission teams, that went to Africa and showcased a white Jesus. I nearly sobbed, as I realized all that little statement meant to him, and I literally watched his heart melt and his defenses crumble as this truth sunk in. And that very night, Habi surrendered and asked Jesus to be the leader of his life. But it was not until we erased that lie.

Something needs to break and change inside of us until it is not us versus them anymore, until it is just us collective - a broken, fallen people, yes, made in the image of God, who all need rescuing. Not one of us is better or more deserving than the other. I want to see a difference in my daughter's generation, but when things like her story creep up, I feel discouraged and so sad.

Thankful to serve a God who loves justice and will one day right all of this horrible, horrible wrong.

.One Story at a Time.

For a moment I thought perhaps 2013 will be the year that I will stop blogging - when my fingers will hover over the keyboard and then slowly back away from the keys. The year when I will say enough. I've let enough people in, and I would straighten my shoulders, push back my chair, brush my hands off and walk away from this space. A space that has brought me so much beauty and so much pain. I have been blogging since 2005, shortly after my Cadi was born. I wanted a place to remember all of her firsts and what it felt like to be a young, first-time Mommy. My blog has grown and changed just as my story has grown and changed. I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Journals fill up boxes that tell of my life, my thoughts, my dreams - my story.

And here, this tiny space, in the great big web, this tells my story too. It tells a story that He is authoring, and the final chapter hasn't been completed yet, so gently He asks me to keep writing.

Keep writing when I am misunderstood.

Keep writing when my hands shake and my heart races.

Keep writing when the story doesn't make sense, and the next chapter seems crazy, or forgotten, or too far away.

Just keep writing, because someone, somewhere will connect with this story and will collide with these words, and our stories just may mingle and weave beautifully together in the Ultimate story. Because alone, our story is insignificant and incomplete, but as part of the whole, Ultimate story, it is beautiful and relevant, and it all ties together in a breathtaking mosaic.

When one shares a story - writes it and lays it open for others to read - there is so much vulnerability in the sharing. But if I have learned nothing else, these past years writing out my soul, it is this: we all have a story to share. It is in the sharing of these broken, everyday stories that the beautiful redemption of Jesus is so brilliantly seen.

I feel nudged to keep coming here and keep writing - to be brave when I don't feel like it, and write authentically from my heart, because I know there are other women working in the Kingdom, who just might connect with the words on this page. In Jesus we are connected; we are community. I know that other people are meant to share the pages of my story.

My prayer is that at the heart of my story, in the words that I share, that you find Jesus and your own words to share your story. Our stories matter. Let's take time to share them, one story at a time.

Come and listen…let me tell you what God has done for me. Psalm 66:16

(A few stories I am reading while the stomach flu ravages our home.)