Life Is An Earthquake

     Sometimes in life we feel empty. Things get messy and confusing. Life hurts; mostly it hurts because it changes. Things shift and you have no control over it. It's in the little things like who sits next to who at Christmas dinners. You notice it when suddenly conversations become about what's in theaters instead of your dreams and naming stars. Growing up is one big tectonic plate shifting and shaking your world and just when you think things are going back to normal, you think things are slowing down, everything comes to a screeching halt. What no one tells you about sudden stops is that there's still momentum that crashes everything that's left into the ground. It hurts and it's painful.

     You pick yourself up off of the ground and brush the dust off. Scrambling around trying to gather everything you hold dear. It looks different for everyone; gluing the pieces together that is. Sometimes it's sharing with someone you don't even know. It's sacrifice and giving of yourself. It's letting old dreams die and trying desperately to find a new one. It's fighting with everything you have. It's climbing until you fall down exhausted and then forcing yourself to go one step more. 

     More often than we'd like to admit there is no putting it back together. It's changed and it will never be the same again. We get angry and lash out. We feel abandoned. We become depressed. We curl up inside of ourselves and mourn all that we've lost. We scream, kick, cry, and hit. We try to make sense of everything. We close our tear filled eyes and pray that when we wake up we realize that it will all just be a bad dream. It's not. This is life. It changes us and knocks us flat and it sucks. It hurts and sometimes it leaves us feeling empty and defeated and confused. We want to give up. Stop trying. Just lay down and never give up. That's just how it is.

     I get it, I understand. Here's what I have to say it sucks. It will and you don't have to pretend like everything is okay. Kick, scream, and cry if that's what you need to do. It's okay to be upset. What's not okay is to give up on yourself. Never...ever give up on yourself. You can keep going. You can and you will.

20 Minutes With Thurman

    A couple weeks ago I had the honor of meeting a man named Thurman, he and his wife came into the store where I work and while his wife shopped Thurman sat on a bench in an entry way. They walked in and his wife asked if there was a place that he could sit and then she went on to explain that he has alzheimers and he wouldn't be able to go up and down the stairs, and that it would be easier on him if he could sit somewhere and wait. We agreed and before she went downstairs she told us her name and his and to come get her if he got too anxious.
     He was fine for a while and then he started getting anxious and got up and went to look for his wife and my co-worker talked to him and got him to calm down and sit and he was fine. A few minutes same thing. After the third time he was getting very anxious so my co-worker went to tell his wife and I just decided to go sit with him. I've never been around someone going through that so I honestly didn't know if my presence would help or if it would make him more nervous. I grabbed a couple Missouri Conservationist off of our magazine rack and sat down next to him. He was really excited that I knew his name, and he introduced himself to me and I to him and then we looked through one of the magazines together. He told me about how much he loves fishing and how he's always wanted to go quail hunting.
     A few minutes into our conversation he literally blinked once, looked at me and went, "Hi, I'm Thurman...do I know you? Have we met?" I told him we had just met and we were new friends and told him my name, he relaxed and started looking at the magazine and he told me the same stories. This time he told me he was born in 1925, and he wasn't sure how old that made him but he was pretty sure he was 35. A few minutes went passed and soon we had to do introductions again. At this point I started to tear up because I couldn't even begin to imagine what this was like for him or his family. How awful this must be for everyone who loved him. It broke my heart to have to imagine having to go through this. Gently, Thurman reached over and took my hand.
      "Don't cry, I don't like seeing people cry, there's no sense in it. There's so much badness in the world but you can't let it steal your joy. I would never do anything to make anyone feel bad. I believe in working hard, believing in each other, love, and kindness. We must always be kind to those around us, always care for everyone. We can't hurt each other, we need each other too much."
      About that moment his wife walked by and waved at us on her way to the register. Thurman lit up, "Do you see her? She's mine...isn't she beautiful?" I nodded and told her of course she is. His eyes softened and he held my hand tighter, "she's the kindest woman I've ever known. I just couldn't stand being with a woman who was unkind or cantankerous, nope couldn't handle that. But her, she's so kind and gentle. She'd do anything for anybody, give you the clothes off her back, she's just like that. She's an incredible woman that one is."
     After that we just sat silent, hand in hand, waiting for his wife to come through the check out. She did and when she came out she thanked me for sitting with her husband, but really I was the one who should have been thanking her. As he got up to go he turned around to shake my hand, "It was nice meeting you young lady, maybe I'll see you again real soon." If I ever do see Thurman again he won't remember me, he won't know he ever sat with me on a bench inside of a store. I however, will never forget Thurman. Even in the midst of all he was going through he didn't forget the important things. He didn't forget who he was, and he didn't forget to pass on his wisdom. Thurman is right we have to believe in hard work, each other, love, and kindness because there is so much darkness in the world. We have to remember that we need each other and not to let the world steal our joy.

~ Carrots 

God Told Me To Go, Jesse Told Me To Write About It

     I'm writing this honestly because Jesse told me I should. We were sitting outside Starbuck, Carmel Brule latte in hand, gazing at the Christmas lights our town had already put up when I started telling her this story. Before I was done something along the lines of, "Why haven't you blogged about this, you need to blog about this now." Came out of her mouth. That was Monday....it's Thursday and I'm finally getting around to starting this post. At first I wanted to be selfish and keep it for me, I wanted my little story and experience to belong to me. God gave it to me. Then I started thinking about how ridiculous I was being, what if someone else needed to hear this? That's why God reveals things to us isn't it? So we can pour it into other people? Well, here's my little story and my little experience that made a big impact for me personally.
    
     Little bit of back story....I work a part time job at a local non-profit. As you can imagine this pays basically nothing and I literally have no idea how I manage to pay rent and buy groceries every month. I had been praying and felt God telling me to stay at my job a little while longer, this is frustrating. I also developed the overwhelming desire and need to start college in January, I prayed about it and felt like I should start applying but I can't afford even one class without financial aid so it felt like a big joke and fruitless endeavor. This is extremely frustrating. My life has basically been stress and penny pinching and become depressed and anxious about my future and worrying about every little thing. A couple weeks ago my sister came to stay with me for the weekend, after church on Sunday I met my parents half way and dropped her off.

     As I was starting the drive back to Missouri I realized that I would have 2 1/2 hours in the car alone so I started to pray, and sing, I turned on worship music, and I spent that time with God. When I got about 45 minutes away from home I had this overwhelming urge of, I need to go to church tonight. The thing is my church doesn't normally have Sunday night services and even if we did I wouldn't have made it back in time. Then God dropped a church I had driven past on my way out in my head. It was about 20 minutes up the road and I knew that I could make it as long as I didn't stop, I didn't even know the denomination of the church, I just knew that, that was where I needed to be that night. I pull into the parking lot at 5:59, the sign says church starts at 6:00....there are only 2 cars in the parking lot. Anyway so I go inside and the Pastor is there with a couple people from the church and low and behold on the last Sunday of the month they don't have an evening service they have an afternoon fellowship and afternoon service instead. Basically, I showed up for church and there was no church. So, I end up going into his office to speak with him. Throughout our conversation I mentioned that my dad is a Pastor.
      "Oh, where is you dad a Pastor?"
      "Kansas," I told him.
      Turns out he was from Kansas too. He had been born there, raised there, graduated high school, met his wife, and got married there. Naturally I asked him where in Kansas he was from expecting Topeka or Salina but no...he looked at me and said, "Arkansas City." I stopped....because that's where I'm from and once you leave Ark City you never run into anyone from Ark City ever again until you go back for a visit. It's just one of those towns that no one leaves...so I knew right then and there that was a total God thing, and God had my absolute undivided attention. When I told him I was from Ark City I saw the look on his face, he knew, he knew I was here for a very specific reason.

      The details of our conversation aren't too important and honestly I won't lie, this is getting to be a long post and I've probably lost most of you at this point and I'm too lazy to write the whole thing anyway. Basically, after that all I told him was that I was currently working and trying to go to school. I didn't tell him anything about my financial situation or how hard it is for me to go to school or anything.

     Out of the blue, and what seemed rather off topic, he told me that the story of how he met his wife is incredible. Of course I thought he would then tell me the story of how he met his wife. Instead he said, "Let me tell you what I learned from our story. I learned to trust God. To completely let go of my life and let him take control. I learned that when I let go he works it out. He brings us amazing and better things, he brings us to new places. We have to stop trying to figure out and make it work because that's not our job, it's his. God figures out. The desires of our hearts, the things we want, our plans, and the things that God has called and asked us to do that seem impossible...we can't stress over them. We can't crunch the numbers and lay awake at night and worry about it. We can't make the move on our own and try to make it fit together and work. If God called us to do it, if he placed the desire in our heart then he'll make it work. He'll come in and bring all together but not until we set it down and let him completely have it."

     Talk about hearing exactly what I needed to hear. I didn't say much I just nodded and smiled and soaked it all in. Then before I left he asked if he could pray for me and I said yes. We started praying and it was a pretty typical, thank you for bringing her here, type of prayer. Then in the middle of praying he pauses and starts again with, "Lord, just take this time to remind Kaitlin that you are her security. Financially, physically, spiritually, emotionally...you are her security. You're her provider and her protector and she doesn't need to worry because you care for her."

     Again....right what I needed to hear. Even as I type it, I need to hear it again. Man...I really don't know how to wrap up this blog only to say maybe you needed this too. Trust God, and yeah. I leave you with a promise to work on my conclusions.

~Carrots

    

Fighting For The Lost Causes

     This is a blog post I actually wrote almost two years ago during my undergrad year of my internship, I wrote this post for the intern website. I was thinking about this post a couple days ago and I went and found it so I thought I would share it here for you....so enjoy.

     Last night we had an intern Christmas party at our directors’ house. We ate a family dinner, which made me tear up because I’m very family oriented, played games, talked, and exchanged a few presents. Our amazing directors got each of us a word picture — pictures of various objects that look like letters that are put together to spell out names and words. Before we opened them our director told us that all of the presents were similar, but she had chosen the one that reminded her of us as individuals. We all got different words: Peace, Faith, Rest, Smile, and so on. I opened mine and I saw Hope. At first I thought, “That’s nice,” but there wasn’t any big “Wow. This is so me!” moment, until I read the quote underneath it.

 “Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.” – Dale Carnegie.

It’s no secret around the HAO that my God-given passion is to help sex trafficking victims and to put an end to trafficking. In fact, someday I hope to work in a safe house here in the United States. However given my age and current intern status, it’s hard to do much other than spreading the word and giving a few dollars here and there to organizations that are helping these victims. I know everyone has to start helping somewhere, but my heart is out on the field with those girls and boys. You may be saying, “Well you’re spreading the word and giving, so that’s good enough.” For some people that may be all they’re called to do, but I want to physically and actively be involved.

There are an estimated 1.2 million children who are sex trafficking victims in the world and most of them are either in the United States or on their way here. Every minute two children are being sold for sexual exploitation. I have been told time and again that, “It doesn’t happen here.” Or, “Well if it’s the U.S. it’s only in places like California or New York.” Did you know the number one pick-up spot in the United States of America of children for sex trafficking purposes is the Midwest? Specifically Missouri, Oklahoma, and Kansas. That’s right, the Bible Belt is the place where children are most likely to be bought and sold for trafficking. This is because you can take a child from the heartland and run in any direction, and it’ll be extremely hard for police to trace you.

The target age for victims is between 8 and 13 years old, but victims as young as newborns are taken, and most of them will be dead within seven years of being abducted. Pimps and traffickers don’t care about race, age, gender, or social class. This doesn’t just happen to people in other countries, and not just to kids who are in the “system”. People have been taken from their homes, schools, parks, stores, and even churches. Human trafficking is the second largest underground industry, after drugs. It is the fastest growing industry and generates $32 billion dollars in annual revenue. Yet it is the most ignored problem in the world.

We pretend that it doesn’t happen here; we sweep it under the rug because it’s ugly and messy and we don’t to get involved. We sacrifice people for the sake of a false security that it’s not happening. We close our eyes, our ears, and our hearts to the dying around us.

I was once told that sex trafficking would never be completely eliminated and there was no point in fighting it because it was just a lost cause. To quote the great American actor, Jimmy Stewart, in the great American movie, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,

“It’s very often that the lost causes are the only causes worth fighting for.”

Aren’t the “lost causes” the very ones we should be giving our lives for? Jesus seemed to think so. When he died on the cross to save humanity from hell, didn’t he give up his life for a bunch of lost causes? Christ died to save an entire world that mocks and rejects him time and time again. If I were Christ I probably would have said, “You know what? This is just a lost cause so I don’t think I’ll fight for them. I’m not going to save all of them so I won’t try at all.” Thankfully Christ didn’t do that to us. Christ looked at a bunch of lost causes and decided he loved so much that he was willing to give his life for us anyway.

Sometimes I imagine Jesus preparing to come down to earth and the angels saying, “Lord why go? You won’t save all of them. It’s a lost cause.” I can see Jesus just looking at them and saying, “Not all will be saved. But by going, all can be. Even so, some will receive me and be saved. They may be lost causes, but they’re my lost causes and I love them. They are worth fighting for.” I’m sure that’s not what actually happened, but even so Jesus Christ looked down at a lost cause and decided we were worth his life.

Hebrews 13:3 says, “Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them; and them which suffer adversity, as being yourselves also in the body.” We often use this verse in reference to the persecuted church, which is correct, but sometimes I think we use it as an excuse to pray and not take action. Prayer is amazing and powerful, but we are called to follow up our prayer with action. We can’t just quote this verse every day and say that we pray for the persecuted church but ignore the fact that every single day our own children are being placed into bondage.

Isaiah 61:1 says, “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound.” We are called to set people free. We are called to make a difference. We have been called to action. It’s often said that, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This is completely true. Human trafficking is a very real and prominent problem, and it’s not going to just magically go away. Until we stop shoving it under the rug, it’s only going to get worse. If it were you, or your daughter, son, sister, brother; wouldn’t you want someone to do something? Yes. Victims of trafficking are in such physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual bondage that they can’t become free on their own. Someone has to break their chains and rescue them.

There are several ways to get involved. There are tons of organizations such as International Justice Mission, Courage To Be You, Love146, and Nightlight Int. that need your financial support, prayer. If you’re interested, they even offer special training and volunteer opportunities. I will never be able to save every single girl who has been forced into prostitution, but I will keep trying even when it seems like there’s no hope, because that is the only way I will ever accomplish anything for the Kingdom of God.

~ Carrots

Where do I go from here?

We all talk a lot about our purpose in life and what we are suppose to do. But, how many of us actually do what we think our purpose is? The sad truth not a lot. So many of us start out with good intentions but we get stuck along the way. Yes we want to fulfill our purposes in life but going where God wants you to go and fulfilling what he wants you to filfull is super hard and it is so much easier to do some of it find a comfortable spot and them just stay there. 

Recently I have been stuck in the complacency of being in a comfortable spot. Not doing anything out of the will of God but not working toward the goals and purposes God has for me. It was a hard awakening realizing that I was no longer moving forward. It wasn't even something someone else could have told me. It was all internal complacency with where I am at now. It wasn't until I came face to face with my passion in the fo of an African children's choir this last weekend that I realized anything had changed. 

As some of you may know my passion is for the children who are alone. The ones who need love because there is no one else there to love them.  Don't let me get started on talking about them because I will cry. Long term my goal is to open a coffee shop that I will use the proceeds to support organizations internationally who are helping those children. 

Sitting there listening to those children whom had most one or both of their parents and literally had nothing. Rebroke for heart for them. They had so much joy and enthusiasm for life and Jesus that I wish so much that I had. They had gone hungry and had gone through such terrible things yet they can talk about how they know the God of the universe loves them. It is so beautiful that it brings me to tears just to think about it. 

So now that I aware of my problem of complacency I can fix it. I must learn what it takes to keep my heart broken for these children as I work my way down my path to someday having a coffee shop to help out. In prayerful consideration of what I should be doing a few things came to mind of how I can keep my heart open for my passion (They may differ depending on what your passion is). 1) Pray. Pray for whatever area you want to be in. Pray for areas that you aren't involved in but are connecting with your passion. Pray for the people you will be connected with (especially the people you don't know yet). 2) Give. Yes I am broke but even I can sponsor a child for $40 a month (if you want to sponsor a child but don't know how shoot me an email I have list of some favorites). Yes it sounds lame but you never know how much sponsoring a child can do for that child. It will also help keep you aware of the need around the world. It is also super cool to receive letters from your child. 3) Discuss. How are you going to be able to make connections or get to know people when you don't know what their passions are and they don't know yours? What if one of your friends had a God inspired idea for you but you never found out because you never talked about anything deep like the future? Also if you start discussing what you want to do now it is so much easier to discuss it when you are actually out there doing what you love. 5) Donate. Yes I said give already but that is more directly related my passion. By donate I mean give to groups that are doing what you want to do. It gets you familiarized with other organizations in the area to are going into as well as be getting connected with these groups you will most likely get news letters and info about what is going on in those organizations. 6) Read. My last point read, read the Bible (helpful for everything), read books and biographys about people who have done and topics related to what you want to go into. Such  as if you want to go into missions in Asia you are probably going to want to read any memoirs from missionaries who have been. Or books on learning the language. 

Remember the passion God has put inside of you. He put it there for a reason use it to your advantage. God loves you and wants to see you succeed. 

Religion that is pure and undefined before God the father is this: take care of the widows and orphans in their affection, and keep ones self unstained from the world. -James 1:27