To Be A Fool…

 It’s real.  It does exsist, and many people suffer in silence, ashamed of their own emotions.  That doesn’t need to be the reality. More and more this is becoming a recognized phenomenon, and there is help out there.

An article about post adoptive depression:   Adoption and Depression

Melissa Fay Greene’s  talks honestly about her experience with PADS:  Do I love him yet?

A wonderful friend of mine, mother of 3 beautiful children adopted from China and Ethiopia, world traveler, and lover of Jesus, shared a personal story of a Kenyan friend of hers in her blog along with a recent update on his life in the midst of the violence. sneathspot: Kenya, up close

I want to actively live my faith. I want to actively live my LIFE! I don’t want my life to be lived from a safe location. A joke in our house when things are going badly is that we’ll go hide under a pile of coats and wait for it to get better. And that is funny, but it is not the way to deal with life.

Radical faith. Radical obedience. These are what I want. I want to feel as though I’ve run the race with everything I’ve got.

Lately I’ve been feeling like something is missing, or I’m playing it safe (call it a mid-life crisis), but I know that taking the years that my children are small isn’t ‘hiding out’… it is some of my best stuff, ya know? But in this long season of diapers, bottles, school, homework, and the seemingly impossible job of potty training, it is easy to lose track of the fact that I’m doing something important.

One of our biggest challenges of late was our adoption our little girl from Ethiopia. She wasn’t so little. She was 7, and she came knowing no English, no western manners and from an entirely different culture. What a struggle she had adjusting to us (and us to her). Yet we learned so much about God throughout the process! It was a HUGE risk for us. I traveled to another country alone to pick up our daughter, and my husband stayed with the 3 little ones we had at home. That is a story for another day.

You’d be amazed at the needs in Ethiopia. No, really… unless you’ve traveled to Africa, you would seriously be amazed. And yet, they are such a wonderful, warm, and really neat people! It was a blessing to be there among them. When we left the protected walls of the hotel complex, we were surrounded by an entirely different world. The extreme poverty, children begging in the streets, small children playing naked in the mud on the median strip of the road. The AIDS epidemic has orphaned so many children. If you’ve never been to Africa, you should go at least once and get a glimpse of what other places in the world live with.

There are lots of ministries that are helping. Many people are adopting from Ethiopia. One of my favorite ministries combines orphan care, adoption, help for widows, and hospice care for dying women. It is called AWOP (African Widows and Orphan Project). But I want to be there. I want to help. I want to be living a radical life for Jesus!

But He hasn’t placed me there, He has placed me here. And I will strive to find the balance between being radical, and being content. I can support ministries that are working there, and I can visit and do my best to meet needs in this far away country that my heart is forever connected to through my beautiful daughter. But, for now, my mission field is right here in front of me. In the guise of my family, and my town.

Blessings,

HW

Check this out. You can buy coffee… AND feed orphans! And it is fair trade. The best of all worlds! (can you tell I’m a coffee addict AND a passionate believer in helping orphans and widows?) www.saintscoffee.com/

(I just ordered a pound of Ethiopian coffee… I’ll let you know how it turns out!)

I’ve spent some time today meditating on what it is that holds me back. In ministry, in relationships, in being myself. In being the person God created me to be.

WHAT?

I could only come to one conclusion. FEAR.

*Fear of failure

*Fear of man

So I started searching the Bible for fear. It was amazing how many verses contain the word ‘fear.’ But I want to begin with this.

Wow. Fear CAN be a good thing, if it is the correct kind of fear. But do I have THIS kind of fear? My only answer can be… I don’t know. Partly, right? We all partly follow God, but so many other things get in our way. What if my walk looked like this? What would happen to my other fears?

The chapter continues:

Well, if THIS is God… if THIS is what God is like and who He is, how can I NOT lay down EVERYTHING for Him? You might argue that I wasn’t there, I wasn’t one of the Isrealites … but if I take the time to read about what God DID do for the Isrealites throughout the book of Genisis and Exodus, and so on, and to know that I’m also a “Child of God,” again I ask, how can I NOT lay down my life?

So I come to the conclusion that it isn’t just FEAR holding me back. It is unbelief and disobedience. Ouch. Fear seems like something I cannot help, but disbelief, and especially disobedience seem MUCH more like something I have chosen.

My next problem in stepping out into ministry and into areas that I’m fearful of, is not just a simple answer.

WHY?

1. Fear of failure: I’m not all that smart. I’m not the greatest speaker. I’m not a Bible scholar, nor am I anywhere NEAR perfect. I am not an attractive person, nor am I skinny. Ok, I just thought of this, in the middle of my well-thought out argument that was just shot down in my head, but I’m sounding like Moses. What… do I need a burning bush to appear before me before I’m willing to step forward and say, “Here I am, Lord, send me!” Of course, I wouldn’t mind Aaron coming along with me.

Where in scripture does it say that God will use the most attractive, best speaker, best person, most educated. In fact, I believe it says in Samuel that God doesn’t look at the outside, but the inside. Ahhh… here it is:

Ok, so that shoots down THAT argument quickly, right? Fear of failure is not a good reason to stay on the couch.

2. Fear of Man (aka in my world: fear of rejection) I have to tell you, I’m really freakin’ afraid of people. Anyone else afraid of people? No, I’m not so much afraid they’ll shoot me, or something (unless they were standing in front of me holding a gun, then I’d probably worry a little about that). What I’m afraid of is their disdain. Huh? Hey, we all have our things, right? Seriously, someone will disapprove of me for the above argument I had. They will REJECT ME! Ouch, that will hurt!!! But as I study scripture, that argument is also laid bare.

TRUTH

Well, if God didn’t give me the fear, then that only leaves two sources from which it comes. Either me or the enemy.

And apparently I’m supposed to be doing it BOLDLY!

I didn’t share this personal story with you so that you could feel sorry for me, or so you would encourage me…. I shared it with you because I suspect that I’m not the only one who struggles with this! If you struggle with this too, let’s ask for God’s help to lay down the fear and move forward with Jesus!

Lord, you said that you have not given me a spirit of fear, but sometimes I feel afraid. I want to fear You, not men. I am asking you to please help me to overcome this emotion, and to press on, press in and most importantly, to seek you first each and every day. In the wonderful name of Jesus, Amen.

There is a scripture that God has given us time and time again.

We are not ashamed to be fools for Jesus!

In the eyes of the world, we look foolish. Believing in a God nobody can see? Believing in an afterlife that isn’t evident to our natural lives? Even trusting in the greater plan of a higher being that supposedly created us from dirt?

Even more ridiculous is the belief that Jesus is not only God’s son, but also God, and that he wasn’t just a good man but rather a Savior who gave his life that we might be able to spend eternity with God.

Of course, I would say that to believe Jesus was just a good man is impossible for those to would actually read what he claimed to be! He claimed to be divine. To be the messiah. He claimed to be the son of God. He also advocated belief in God, and taught about his Father in Heaven, claiming that to see him was to see his Father.

Jesus was either a mad-man, so insane that he would certainly spend his life institutionalized here today, OR he was who he claimed to be. That doesn’t leave the choice of being just a “good man.” That doesn’t leave the choice of being just a “prophet.” We are only left with the decision to believe he is telling the truth… or to believe he was the biggest liar ever.

So those of us who DO believe… who are “foolish” enough to stand against everyone telling us we are crazy… must believe it all. All… or nothing.

If you want to find out more about this Jesus guy, you can pick up a Bible. Try the book of John. It is in the New Testament. Don’t have a Bible? You can read the Bible online for FREE at www.biblegateway.com. Or you can visit the website of some friends of mine. www.considereternity.com for more information.

Happy to be a fool,

HW

These 3 simple little words can be used so much more than they are. There are so many things we don’t know! Why it is so hard for people to admit they don’t know something? Pride, I suppose.  Sad.

Why does a person start a blog, anyway? This might be a huge question among people who don’t blog, but for those of us who have been blogging for awhile, the question should be, “why DON’T people blog?”

I suppose there are a myriad of reasons that people blog.

1. They like to talk. Maybe I just like talking to myself. My first blog, I was shocked that people actually were reading what I have to say. After all, blogging was more a way to get thoughts OUT of my head, and into a journal type setting than it was a platform to communicate with others.

2. They want to keep friends and family updated. Sure. My adoption blog was specifically for that purpose. We were adopting our daughter from Ethiopia, and wanted everyone to be able to keep up with our amazing news from day to day without all of the long distance phone calls (thank God we now live the life of all-inclusive broadband phone service!).

3. They have a cause. That brings me to the purpose of THIS blog. A cause. I have a burning inside of me to write about my faith in Jesus Christ, as well as bringing attention to the deep needs of people around the world and the organizations that bring help to them (and don’t forget the random and senseless ravings about anything else I can think of to write).

So let’s begin, shall we?

A fool for Jesus,

HW