A Mother's Heart

While we were playing with Charles Friday evening at about 7:30, he hurt his wrist.  We had been swinging him and he was loving it!  Laughing, cackling, holding his hands up for more.  And then... he wasn't.  He made a pitiful little "ouch" cry, and toddled over to me.  He sat in my lap holding his arms stiffly, fussing pitifully, for about 20 minutes.  I texted our chiropractor and he agreed to meet us to check him out.  Thank goodness it turned out to be just a little out-of-whack wrist, and with a quick "thump" of the activator, Charles was as good as new.

But during those 45 minutes, my heart ached for my little boy, who was hurting and didn't know why.  He didn't even seem to know what was hurting, exactly, just that something was wrong, and he didn't want to move anything in case the thing that was wrong happened to be what he was moving.  He never screamed, he was really quite calm, just obviously uncomfortable.  I felt it odd that I myself was not hurting too.  My heart hurt for him, but surely our connection was so strong that I would feel his pain in my own body.  But it was just an echo of his hurt, made worse by the fact that I couldn't just kiss it and make it better.

After visiting Doc, we returned home and put Charles straight to bed as it was already well after his bedtime.  I came back down from his room, opened up my Chromebook, and got on Facebook as I chatted with Trevvor.  When I looked back at the screen, at my news-feed, my heart sank.  The first post was the brother of a childhood friend of mine, Rebecca.  He had written that his sister, my friend, had gone to be with the Lord at about 7:30 PM, the same time Charles hurt his wrist.

Rebecca had fought a long, hard battle with cancer--Hodgkins Lymphoma--for over five years.  We saw each other several times over those years, and I kept up with her on Facebook.  I'm sure she had her moments, but when I saw her, she always stayed positive.  She kept joy.  She maintained hope.  She praised God.  She inspired me.

As I wept for her Friday night, I knew that my heart-hurt for Charles' pain was a mere shadow of what Rebecca's mother had experienced these five years and was experiencing right then.  The pain of watching your precious child suffer, fight, and then pass on to the Lord before you, is something I cannot begin to fathom.

Praise God for Rebecca's life, for her testimony during her sickness, and for the hope that we have that we will see her again in God's kingdom.  Such hope is the only thing that can soften the pain of a mother's heart.

Let My Heart Be Broken

About four years ago we began sponsoring two children through World Vision--Dushankini (11, Sri Lanka) and Juan Carlos (11, Guatemala).  Beginning relationships with these children made me aware of the very real need in this world, and it showed me that though I couldn't meet every need, I could meet their needs.

In early 2012, we had been wanting a baby for several years, but were yet childless.  "Alright," I thought, "If I can't care for my own baby, at least I can help more mommas care for theirs!"  So I became a World Vision child ambassador and began sharing sponsorship and the stories of dozens of children with the people in my community.  Praise God, I was able to connect six children with sponsors last summer--that was six lives changed.

About that time, the Lord blessed us with a baby!  We were pregnant!  My focus shifted to my child and preparing for him, and once he was born, I was overwhelmed with meeting his needs.  Recently, though, as I've finally settled into motherhood, the needs of World Vision children began pressing themselves upon my consciousness.  As a new mother, it broke my heart to think of mommas all around the world who could not meet the basic needs of their babies.  I wanted to help them care for their children just as I would hope someone would help me.  It was time to get back out of my bubble and share their stories.

So that's what I've been doing.  I've been telling as many people as will listen that sponsorship not only changes the life of a child, it impacts the lives of their families and communities.  That World Vision works hand-in-hand with a community's leaders to cast a vision for the future and take steps to make that community self-sufficient, so that its members can live lives of independence and dignity.  That over 20,000 children die every single day from preventable causes related to poverty, and we can help lower that number if we work together, changing one life at a time.  That World Vision has been working towards this goal for over 50 years, helping over 100,000 people in more than 100 countries around the world.  That you can trust World Vision to use your gifts with wisdom and integrity, because 85% goes directly to the people in need, with only 5% going to management and 10% going to fundraising.

Needs such as a community well, new or rebuilt schools, public latrines, agriculture, animal husbandry, prenatal & baby care, improved nutrition, health care, literacy programs, and assistance with starting small businesses are being met every day because of people like you.  People who aren't "rich" in society's eyes, but have so much to give to people in need.  People who have decided to make small sacrifices in their monthly living so that an entire community can be impacted, so that Christ's love can be shown to the poorest of the poor.

Because Christ loves the poor.  This is evident throughout the New Testament, and throughout the Old.  Should our hearts not be broken by the things which break His?  Will you be the one to change a life today?

There are several ways you can sponsor a child.  I have picture folders of children around the world who need sponsors, and for the next month it is my responsibility to find sponsors for 30 of them.  There are also two websites you can visit:
http://myshare.worldvision.org/stephanieclark
&
http://tiny.cc/stephanieclark

Pray about this, and know that though $35 a month may seem like a lot to us, it means even more to these kids.

Just because we can...

I had a conversation the other day with a fellow believer who pointed out that the Lord has given us the ability to grow more crops per acre, grow bigger animals for more meat, etc., so therefore we should use that ability to provide more food for a growing population, seemingly no matter what the long-term cost.  The end justifies the means, as it were.

(We were discussing how conservative believers aren't very "green," and those of you who know me are probably pretty aware that Trevvor and I are something of Christian Hippies.  I had been saying that our bodies are temples and the earth is the Lord's creation, and it is possibly sinful to knowingly fill either with toxins.)

I've heard this argument before--God gave us brains, so let's use them!  Well, yes.  I agree.  But we can use those brains for destroying just as easily as for building up.  We have the mental capacity to come up with all sorts of creative ways to kill people en masse (atomic bomb? gas chambers? chemical warfare?--modern man is not immune to creative atrocities any more than our barbarian ancestors).  We have the mental capacity to both kill an unborn child and find a way to make it seem reasonable, even moral, to do so.  We can use stem cells from aborted babies to make medical breakthroughs that would help thousands, tens of thousands!  God gave us brains--let's use them!  Right?

Perhaps not.

Such farming practices such as the ones that allow us to feed more people now are simply unsustainable and will make the earth unable to feed a greater population later.  Do we not have a responsibility towards our children's children as much as we do to ourselves?  Especially since it is false that the current population cannot be fed using sustainable means?  If we focused more on nutrition rather than calories, on growing vegetables and fruits rather than excessive meat and sugarcane, we would have more than enough truly healthful food for everyone today without poisoning the land for everyone in the future.

(As a side note, I'll take the opportunity to throw in here that Westerners are selfish to demand that completely unnecessary food-stuffs such as sugar--which has NO nutritional value and is drug-like in addictive powers--be grown on such a scale.  Not to mention meat, coffee, and chocolate--and don't get me started on corn and soy!--which are not completely devoid of value but are over-consumed to such an extent to have ruined traditional farming practices all over the world in undeveloped countries, which grow luxuries [and nutritionally empty calories] for us at the expense of not being able to grow necessities for themselves. Moderation, people!)

And while I'm already ranting a bit, let me address another argument against caring for creation.  I've heard it said that man will not destroy the earth because God will one day do so, therefore it doesn't matter what man does, the world won't be destroyed until God wills it so.
Really?
That's like saying, "I'm not going to die until it's God's time for me to die, so it doesn't matter what risky behavior I engage in, what I eat, how active I am, or how I care for my body at all.  God's in control, so I don't have to take care of myself--I'll just die when He's ready for me."
In both cases, the speaker is correct.  God will destroy the earth of His own accord, and He will bring us home when He wants us home.  It doesn't matter what we do.  But that doesn't remove from us the burden of caring for that which He has created, be it our fleshly temples or the entire world.

Back to the original point.

No, I do not believe that God gave us brains so that we could poison ourselves, so that we could be so short-sighted as to think that what we do now to maintain our current comfortable lifestyles--Western diet included--won't be devastating for the future.  We have the brain power to have our (lightly sweetened) cake and eat it too!  We can use the brains God gave us to keep His earth pure and our bodies along with it, while still feeding all the precious souls which fill His creation.  It does not have to be one or the other.  Don't use God as an excuse not to dig deeper, to keep searching for more sustainable solutions, to admit that maybe those liberal pagan tree-huggers could have a point.

Yes, we can do all these toxic things in the name of God and science.  But just because we can, doesn't mean we should.

'“All things are lawful,” but not all things are helpful. “All things are lawful,” but not all things build up.' - 1 Corinthians 10:23