A shattered glass. A shattered windshield. A thousand pieces, never to be restored exactly as it was before.
That is the image of the lives impacted by 80+ tornadoes that ripped through the country yesterday.
Shattered lives are awakening this morning to no house, no neighborhood, perhaps even no loved one.
What began as a normal yesterday became a shattered today.
There are no words, scarce comprehension from us as distant onlookers.
But we can pray for hope to return to those living in a shattered Today and...we can not complain as we enter our normal Today.
03 March 2012
02 March 2012
Raising the Bar
Do you think one of God's initiatives for human compassion is to raise the bar? That is, to inspire leaders and visionaries with missions so large that they capture the human spirit and move us in unprecedented directions?
Visit Aspen Heights in Africa and find yourself transported into a vision of making the ordinary into extraordinary.
Recently, I saw firsthand the enthusiasm, world-class provision and expectation, and incredible skill level in the operation known as Aspen Heights. The premise is simple: revolutionize [college] student living in the US and extend that hospitality to change lives in Africa. I was watching the final countdown to the opening party in the Athens, GA complex, soon-to-be-home to UGA students who choose to be a part of something that truly raises the bar.
When God raises the bar, dots are connected across the globe because that is His view. A group of young professionals collaborate to offer a better environment to students because they know that when you treat people with dignity and respect, the best comes out. We rise to the level of how we are treated. Then they respond to God's call to carry that same ethic across the globe to an environment of abject poverty and unthinkable treatment of children and young people. The same dignity and respect are translated into new resources and opportunities that, in turn, bring out the best in a whole new generation of African youth.
We can raise the bar in our own small corner of the world. We can take our ordinary circumstances and apply extraordinary service and love and giving. God will connect all the dots as He chooses, some of which you may never see and many that you may have never anticipated. He may grow your extraordinary effort in your ordinary space to impact the world He loves so dearly.
Thank you for lending Him your extraordinary.
Visit Aspen Heights in Africa and find yourself transported into a vision of making the ordinary into extraordinary.
Recently, I saw firsthand the enthusiasm, world-class provision and expectation, and incredible skill level in the operation known as Aspen Heights. The premise is simple: revolutionize [college] student living in the US and extend that hospitality to change lives in Africa. I was watching the final countdown to the opening party in the Athens, GA complex, soon-to-be-home to UGA students who choose to be a part of something that truly raises the bar.
When God raises the bar, dots are connected across the globe because that is His view. A group of young professionals collaborate to offer a better environment to students because they know that when you treat people with dignity and respect, the best comes out. We rise to the level of how we are treated. Then they respond to God's call to carry that same ethic across the globe to an environment of abject poverty and unthinkable treatment of children and young people. The same dignity and respect are translated into new resources and opportunities that, in turn, bring out the best in a whole new generation of African youth.
We can raise the bar in our own small corner of the world. We can take our ordinary circumstances and apply extraordinary service and love and giving. God will connect all the dots as He chooses, some of which you may never see and many that you may have never anticipated. He may grow your extraordinary effort in your ordinary space to impact the world He loves so dearly.
Thank you for lending Him your extraordinary.
01 March 2012
Wired, Hope and Restoration
Sometimes two words fit together in interesting ways.
There is the hope of restoration.
And there is the restoration of hope.
It seems we fit curiously in the middle.
If we see God as bigger than we are with our best interest at heart, then we are living with the hope of restoration of this world.
And if that is the "little engine that could" driving our days, then we are energized to lend to others our part in the restoration of [their] hope.
So let's put it together: Has God wired us with the hope of restoration so that WE put our energy into the restoration of hope of a fellow traveler?
There could be a someone whose "little engine that could" is weary and fading. Are you the engine that can remember your God-hope of restoration, move into a place of encouragement, and give the push that points to the restoration of hope?
May you find the fellow traveler for whom you are the restoration of hope.
There is the hope of restoration.
And there is the restoration of hope.
It seems we fit curiously in the middle.
If we see God as bigger than we are with our best interest at heart, then we are living with the hope of restoration of this world.
And if that is the "little engine that could" driving our days, then we are energized to lend to others our part in the restoration of [their] hope.
So let's put it together: Has God wired us with the hope of restoration so that WE put our energy into the restoration of hope of a fellow traveler?
There could be a someone whose "little engine that could" is weary and fading. Are you the engine that can remember your God-hope of restoration, move into a place of encouragement, and give the push that points to the restoration of hope?
May you find the fellow traveler for whom you are the restoration of hope.
29 February 2012
God and Georgia
I think God sometimes makes Himself known in the funniest ways.
I find myself this morning in the lobby of The Georgia Gameday Center, billed as a sports condominium. I'm helping my daughter with a project in Athens, GA and her company has rented a suite in the building. As you can imagine, you cannot look in any direction without seeing the famous "G" and every representation of Georgia Bulldog sports that one can imagine.
As I'm staring at a wall mural of red G's etched into stainless steel, my feet resting on a carpet with a giant G, I remember seeing the Bulldog football coach in a movie, Facing the Giants. Playing himself in the movie, he attends the state championship game between the Christian school underdog and a rival powerhouse. In the story, the Christian school coach played under Coach Richt, and they met in the locker room before the big game. Coach Richt praised Coach Taylor (movie name) for winning the big one, that is, mentoring the team to play all of life for God.
In Wikipedia, Coach Richt is quoted, "Throughout all of life I try to live by Colossians 3:23: And whatever you do, do heartily as to God and not to men.
So, unexpectedly, I have met God through a remembrance (the movie--it is the movie I have watched more than any for inspiration, by the way), the public God-stance of a fellow sojourner (Coach Richt), and a thousand G's that, if I go there, could remind me of another "G" I know.
Wonder if letting all these G's remind me of God makes Him smile.
I find myself this morning in the lobby of The Georgia Gameday Center, billed as a sports condominium. I'm helping my daughter with a project in Athens, GA and her company has rented a suite in the building. As you can imagine, you cannot look in any direction without seeing the famous "G" and every representation of Georgia Bulldog sports that one can imagine.
As I'm staring at a wall mural of red G's etched into stainless steel, my feet resting on a carpet with a giant G, I remember seeing the Bulldog football coach in a movie, Facing the Giants. Playing himself in the movie, he attends the state championship game between the Christian school underdog and a rival powerhouse. In the story, the Christian school coach played under Coach Richt, and they met in the locker room before the big game. Coach Richt praised Coach Taylor (movie name) for winning the big one, that is, mentoring the team to play all of life for God.
In Wikipedia, Coach Richt is quoted, "Throughout all of life I try to live by Colossians 3:23: And whatever you do, do heartily as to God and not to men.
So, unexpectedly, I have met God through a remembrance (the movie--it is the movie I have watched more than any for inspiration, by the way), the public God-stance of a fellow sojourner (Coach Richt), and a thousand G's that, if I go there, could remind me of another "G" I know.
Wonder if letting all these G's remind me of God makes Him smile.
28 February 2012
The Real Defeat of Competition
One of the greatest things about our American lifestyle is its permission to compete. Freedom has its pitfalls, but we nearly take for granted the fact that who we become and what we attain are mostly up to our own effort and choices made along the way.
However, there is a zone in which competition is deadly and defeating. That is, the place in our minds where the voices cry, "You are not enough."
Is that voice our own? I don't think we begin with that voice. Out of the womb, we are simply beautiful and enough and fearfully and wonderfully made.
But then the real competition begins. We are surrounded by defeating comments, advertising perfection, the meanness of fellow little girls, all trying to carve out self-edification by tearing down each other.
What a vicious world little girls navigate. Adolescence adds its filter of doubt in self and then love enters the picture with all its immaturity, misplaced passion, and inevitable hurt.
Adulthood for women is spent exhausting ourselves for others and still comparing who we are with other women. All of this spells a lifetime of competition that can be overwhelming and certainly a zone of defeat.
Is there a warm, safe place to recover? The only truly accurate mirror that I know to look in to find our real worth is simply pursuing who Jesus is and finding through Him the incredible love of the One who made us.
We find, amazingly, that we are unique to everyone else. Each one of us is her own template, orginal, gifted and significant to God.
So, said on the flip side, the real defeat of competition is believing that we no longer need to compete with each other. Let's defeat the competition that is trying to defeat us.
However, there is a zone in which competition is deadly and defeating. That is, the place in our minds where the voices cry, "You are not enough."
Is that voice our own? I don't think we begin with that voice. Out of the womb, we are simply beautiful and enough and fearfully and wonderfully made.
But then the real competition begins. We are surrounded by defeating comments, advertising perfection, the meanness of fellow little girls, all trying to carve out self-edification by tearing down each other.
What a vicious world little girls navigate. Adolescence adds its filter of doubt in self and then love enters the picture with all its immaturity, misplaced passion, and inevitable hurt.
Adulthood for women is spent exhausting ourselves for others and still comparing who we are with other women. All of this spells a lifetime of competition that can be overwhelming and certainly a zone of defeat.
Is there a warm, safe place to recover? The only truly accurate mirror that I know to look in to find our real worth is simply pursuing who Jesus is and finding through Him the incredible love of the One who made us.
We find, amazingly, that we are unique to everyone else. Each one of us is her own template, orginal, gifted and significant to God.
So, said on the flip side, the real defeat of competition is believing that we no longer need to compete with each other. Let's defeat the competition that is trying to defeat us.
27 February 2012
Changing Your Point of View
My youngest daughter is a designer/decorator.
The middle school version of that was every square inch of her bedroom ceiling covered with posters of favorite icons as well as her own art.
Like many moms, my focus was the floor, as in what is out of place, needs picking up or vacuuming for the umpteenth time. I definitely was missing the inspiration that she saw everywhere.
One day, while she was at school, I entered this decorator-on-steroid-zone to clean yet again. For some reason, the bed looked inviting as a place to pause and I found myself face-to-face with a ceiling parade of people and designs.
And something happened in that moment: I changed my point of view. I saw her room more from her frame of reference--the design, the originality. I was absolutely captivated that she saw the ceiling as yet one more wall, one more mural message space to say what she was learning and thinking about the world.
The lesson was mine to learn. That is, pray for the freedom to change my point of view. I ask God to show me how to see the world through the eyes of others' so I can share their journey if I am a part.
It's Monday, yet again. Don't just see the floor. Pause and see...a new view.
The middle school version of that was every square inch of her bedroom ceiling covered with posters of favorite icons as well as her own art.
Like many moms, my focus was the floor, as in what is out of place, needs picking up or vacuuming for the umpteenth time. I definitely was missing the inspiration that she saw everywhere.
One day, while she was at school, I entered this decorator-on-steroid-zone to clean yet again. For some reason, the bed looked inviting as a place to pause and I found myself face-to-face with a ceiling parade of people and designs.
And something happened in that moment: I changed my point of view. I saw her room more from her frame of reference--the design, the originality. I was absolutely captivated that she saw the ceiling as yet one more wall, one more mural message space to say what she was learning and thinking about the world.
The lesson was mine to learn. That is, pray for the freedom to change my point of view. I ask God to show me how to see the world through the eyes of others' so I can share their journey if I am a part.
It's Monday, yet again. Don't just see the floor. Pause and see...a new view.
26 February 2012
What About Extraordinary Starts a Movement?
What is it exactly about extraordinary that starts a movement?
Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream that he shared and lived and invited others to join.
The young man in Pay It Forward, in response to a social studies assignment, designed a project where good deeds were "paid back" by three good deeds done toward three new people.
In Dolphin Tale, the real turning point in saving the Clearwater Marine Hospital was the main character being impacted by the mom of a handicapped child driving 8 hours to share with this daughter the experience of a handicapped dolphin.
Jesus walked the earth with a sacrificial Love never before demonstrated.
All of these "extraordinaries" have in common a wealth of passion, a view that most others don't have in the beginning, and a seed of courage to activate the movement.
Chances are someone reading this recognizes the call, the call deep inside to move forward with the birth of the movement that the world needs, even if the world rejects it first.
Be extraordinary. Answer the call.
Dr. Martin Luther King had a dream that he shared and lived and invited others to join.
The young man in Pay It Forward, in response to a social studies assignment, designed a project where good deeds were "paid back" by three good deeds done toward three new people.
In Dolphin Tale, the real turning point in saving the Clearwater Marine Hospital was the main character being impacted by the mom of a handicapped child driving 8 hours to share with this daughter the experience of a handicapped dolphin.
Jesus walked the earth with a sacrificial Love never before demonstrated.
All of these "extraordinaries" have in common a wealth of passion, a view that most others don't have in the beginning, and a seed of courage to activate the movement.
Chances are someone reading this recognizes the call, the call deep inside to move forward with the birth of the movement that the world needs, even if the world rejects it first.
Be extraordinary. Answer the call.
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