The Starfish

Once upon a time, there was a wise old man,
who went to the sea to contemplate.

One day, while walking along the shore,
the wise old man looked down the beach,
and saw a gracefully dancing human figure.
The wise old man wondered out loud,

“Who would be dancing all alone on the beach?”
He began to walk faster to catch up.
Getting closer, the wise man saw that the dancer
was a child, who was not dancing at all.
The child was reaching down to the sand to pick up
something, and was very gently throwing it into the sea.

The man called out to the child,
“Good Morning! What are you doing?”
The child paused, looked up and replied,
“Throwing Starfish into the sea.”
Surprised, the man said,
“Yes, I see that, but WHY are you throwing Starfish into the sea?”

The child smiled brightly, pointed upward and
with perfect simplicity replied,
“The sun is up, and the tide is going out.
If I don’t throw them in, they will die.”
“But, don’t you realize, “asked the man,
“that there are miles and miles of beach and Starfish all along it?
You can’t possibly make a difference!”

The child listened politely.
Then bent down, picked up another Starfish,
threw it gently into the sea, just beyond the breaking waves,
and joyfully declared,
“It made a difference for that one.”



Want to throw a starfish back?

The Thick and Thin Friend

Memorial Box Monday Edition

When I first became a Christian I was missing a big piece of my walk. I was missing friends. I had a couple friends. At that time, not too many real friends, but I had friends. What I was missing were real friends. Friends who understood my faith. Friends who supported, encouraged, and challenged me. Friends like I read about in books. I have two sisters who didn't live near me at the time, and though one knew my faith, only had so much time for me via the phone. I was struggling with panic disorder at the time and there were many things I prayed about. The thing I prayed the most about at the time was friends. I prayed long and hard for friends that I could experience this life as a Christian with.

At the time I had nothing in sight. I was going to a church with an awesome teaching pastor but where no one seemed to notice I was there. I would linger a little before and after service but after a year and a half not a single person acknowledged me there or invited me to anything. I wanted a Christian friend more than anything, but it didn't seem like it was going to happen to me, and as shy as I was it was even more distant. Those days were tough for me, trying to teach myself and encourage myself. Lets just say my understandings and decisions weren't always the best. I would lay and pray and ask the Lord "Lord please could I have a friend who was a Christian".

Through a series of events, about 4 years later I started going to a particular church, and after a series of events started spending time with a woman named Arlene. Arlene was a tad older than me but we always had so much fun that I loved spending time with her.

I can't begin to explain how important she is to me. How she has encouraged me. How she has sharpened me, like iron on iron. How she has challenged me. How she has loved me. How she has taught me. How she has encouraged me. How she has supported me. How she has helped me in my walk.

At different times we have talked about wondering if our friends were the type that stick through hard times, through thick and thin. She always told me she would expect me to leave her in tough times. And I too had never had a friend who would go through the really tough times with me. Arlene and I have been through THE RINGER. Going through numerous people drama, church breakups, deaths, fights, attacks, accusations, and all kinds of hell she has stuck by me. When people have attacked her and when people have attacked me and when we fought even with each other, we always got through it together.

There were plenty of times it would be easy for her to walk away from me. But she didn't. She is the type of friend that tells me when I am wrong. She is the type of friend that protects me when people come against me. She is the type of friend that I can know will go through the fires with me in this life.

When I prayed for a friend - I was really praying for Arlene. I am amazed that the Lord had something so special in mind for me. Someone to teach me to be a friend, to teach me to be a wife, to teach me to be a child of God and sit at the foot of Christ. I have some very special and amazing people in my life, but I would not be who I am and where I am without Arlene - that is for sure. Paul said "follow me as I follow Christ". In the meantime I have been following Arlajean as she follows Christ. She is my real life Linny.

Perfume and incense bring joy to the heart, and the pleasantness of one's friend springs from his earnest counsel.? - Proverbs 27:9

This week I am putting a picture of Arl and I in my memorial box.

  

The Tip

Memorial Box Monday Edition

So for a period of time I was working for a cable provider as a field technician and really struggling to pay my way. It seemed as if every single week I would run out of money a couple days before pay day and really have to get creative. I would find ways to make groceries stretch, I would find ways to make the bills get paid a month early so that when I was late I was never really late, but could go a couple extra days since I was in actuality a month ahead. I would do things like this because I was in a situation where that was my only choice. Perhaps my eyes were bigger than my wallet as far as choosing housing and all, but for whatever the reason I was low on dough in those days.

So, God used these times to show me in mighty ways how tangible and real He was. I remember many times where I did not have money for gas to get home from work and God would just bring it out of thin air. I would be in my truck driving around and praying. "Please God - help me make my gas last for just one more day". Then I would moments later walk into a client who would hand me just enough money to put gas in my car as a tip. Now, tips were not the norm in my job. Sometimes you would go months without a tip. And I have to say I have never thought to tip the cable man when he came to my house. But every now again, without rhyme or reason, a client would shove money in my hand/pocket/toolbag and insist that I take it. The part that made it so very beautiful to me was when I hadn't had a tip in months, and not necessarily asking for it, just praying God would find a way to provide, and out of nowhere a tip of $10 or $20 to go into my gas tank and get me home and back to work the next day.

God made sure He did this in very obvious ways to me. And often now people think I am insensitive and careless about money. And perhaps sometimes I am (thank the Lord I have a husband who is the exact opposite with money), but it is just something the Lord has taught me not to worry about. The God of the universe has the ability to provide more money than I need, and He has proven to me that he will always take care of me much more than I deserve. So on this memorial box monday I want to make sure that I remember all those times God took care of the little things for me.

²⁵"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? ²⁶Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? ²⁷Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life^[b]? - Matthew 6

This week I am putting a bean in my memorial box. Because God was my provider of gas!

  

The Boy

Memorial Box Monday Edition

So while I spent my late teen years with my high school boyfriend, my early twenties found me broken-hearted and alone. My high school boyfriend and I had parted ways. My friends had all gone off to their own lives. My parents had completed a divorce and were involved in their new lives with their new significant others. I had a newfound faith in Christ, and while I finally felt like I was home (because of my faith), I was also experiencing my first alone time as a single "adult".

Initially it was very lonely and I was pretty sad. But then the Lord started to call me. He drew me to His word. I started reading it for the first time in my life and really seeing it as something real and applicable and the living word of God. I made some mistakes as an early Christian, as we all do. Saying the wrong thing out of zeal. Doing the wrong thing out of ignorance and rebellion. But from early on I had a desire to not just read the scriptures but to understand them.

But to be honest I often wondered about my husband. I wondered when I would meet him. I wondered what he would be like. Even in my most spectacular moments with Christ I had in the back of my mind earthly love. I prayed and asked God why everyone around me was marrying off and He had left me alone. I asked what was unworthy about me that I couldn't have a man to start a family with. I knew I wasnt ready, but I wanted it anyhow, and I guess I thought if I was persistent enough the Lord would eventually answer the prayer.

At some point my older sister told me to get my prayer journal and start making a list of the things I wanted the Lord to grow in my husband, things that were important to me. She reminded me how special it was to pray for a man I did not yet know. I did this, and continued this, though I often lamented and felt like it was something that would never happen. I often felt I would end up an old maid... silly I know but going through my twenties and being the only one in the room without even a boyfriend was difficult. I asked that the Lord not bring me a man until my husband, and He certainly fulfilled that, much to my chagrin.

So what were the things I was asking the Lord to prepare my husband with? What were the things most important to me? Here are a few I recall:

a deep love for Christ

a deep love for me

sillyness

humbleness

tenderness

the ability to make me laugh

passionate about youth ministry

someone to make me feel safe

laid back/easy going

So, I spent some time praying for this, but also for God to form my husband to be the perfect fit for me, and what I didn't even know that I would need in life. I often felt these were promises that would never be fulfilled. I knew that the Lord wants us all to feel the love of a spouse, especially when that is a reflection of His love for us. But I know there are still people in this world who don't get that, and I often felt that that would one day be me.

During this time I focused on my walk. I learned to appreciate my friendships. I grew in my faith. I learned more about who Christ is and what He wanted for my life. I have had the most amazing friends who have gotten me through that time in my life. I have had the most amazing and awesome moments with the Lord. I have experienced things some never get to. And in the end.....

So it was spring when we first met online. It was a website like myspace but for Christians. I initially signed up while I was researching for my online ministry and had surfed around it looking for ideas for new features. We started talking on the site, then it switched to text. Then we started playing Lord of the Rings Online together with some of my friends, until one day when his computer crashed and he called me. Then we started spending time on the phone. Until one day in late November when we set up our first date. I wasn't about to meet someone new on my own, so I made sure my friend Anna and her husband could come and that we would go somewhere public.

Well, after our date Bry and I went to Starbucks alone. We sat outside and talked. Before we knew it it was dark, the place had closed up around us and everyone was gone. I recall freezing but didn't want to go get a jacket for fear the magic I felt would end. He was even smart enough to leave the night with just a friendly hug. Our first kiss would come later. We both felt that connection, that magic, like nothing before. 

We both started to realize very quickly that this was it. At some point we had a talk about how we had been praying for a spouse. It was not long before we noticed that the very specific things that we had been asking God for were very specifically part of each other's character. Bry is the man I had been praying for (to the tee), and even more that I didn't even know I needed yet. Where I am weak he is strong, where he falls short I succeed. We are the perfect fit, and who would have known?

Since we have met we have encouraged each other in our faiths. Early on (when we lived 2 hours away from each other) we would spend hours upon hours on the phone. We would take turns reading through the new testament together. He would drive down for youth group on the weekends, where I was a volunteer. He became a friend not just to me but to my friends as well. I soon saw that all the things I had admired in husbands I had seen in my life were all compiled in Bryans very being. The night he knelt on the beach and proposed to me I told him I felt like I won the husband lottery. And I still feel that way even more than I could imagine. We are not perfect, but we are certainly perfect for each other. I pray for many many many years with Bryan. He is a daily reminder of not only God's fulfillment of a hope, but of the intense love that God has for us. He is my matching puzzle piece.

I am putting a candle from our wedding into our memorial box today. :Because our love is God's greatest gift to date.

  

The Hearing

Memorial Box Monday Edition

It was a few years ago that my grandpa had a stroke. He had been falling at home, but refused to let us move him to a facility where he could have some assistance. It had gotten to the point, though that he would fall often and was often in the hospital, and often not telling us about it. A couple weeks before the stroke he called me for a ride from the hospital. As I drove him home we talked. I told him how much I missed granny and how losing her had such a profound impact on my life ( a story for another day). He told me about his parents who had married despite their family's aversion to the mixing of religions. He told me that his mother always told him that being different didn't make someone better than another and that people should love and respect each other despite their differences. It was as if he knew we didn't have forever to talk. I had a similar conversation with my granny when she was getting real sick. Its as if they knew.

A couple days after that I went and picked up my grandpa for easter dinner. I brought him to my house and we had dinner with my roommates. He had some cuts from the recent falls and my friend later confided in me that he didn't look good and I should make the most of the time we had left with him. Only days later I got the call from my mom that he had had a stroke and that the neighbor found him and that he was in the hospital. I didn't know what to do but my bosses told me to go so I went. When we got to the hospital we saw this time it was worse.

Now something you should know about my grandfather is that he was a soldier. He fought in World War II and also in the Korean War. I don't know exactly what he did other than he was in the army before there was an air force and worked on planes. My grandpa would share stories only here and there and seemed sad when he did. I know that he lost much of his hearing from being around planes in the military and as long as I was alive had hearing aids to hear. Even with his hearing aids it was annoying for him to hear because it amplified all sounds equally. Music and background noises greatly bothered him so often he would turn them off and just pretend to listen. With three daughters and his wife this was an advantage for him. He would often chuckle when someone caught him and turn them back on.

So back to more recent past..... we spent a week in the hospital with my grandpa before he passed. My mom, my sister, me. We would sit and hold his hand. Sometimes I would sit at the end of the bed and keep my hand on his foot so he would know I was there. During that week we knew most of the time that it was truly the end.

But something very interesting happened. My grandpa who had often had trouble hearing with a hearing aid didn't wear the hearing aid the whole week. He couldn't hear or even see the doctors most of the time, but he could hear us perfectly. We would sign and speak super loud to try and get his attention, and he would say "theres no need to yell I can hear you just fine". One time when my mom was trying to get his attention for the doctor, grandpa said "I can hear you, youve got a big mouth, like your mother did". Chuckling.

Grandpa was a trip right up to the end. He kept telling us all week long... "getting old is not for sissys... but it sure beats the alternative." I am not so sure about that. I believe that because of the cross when we die we go to heaven and spend eternity with Christ and our loved ones, if we believe. And when my grandpa took his last breaths later that week my mom, sister, and I were holding onto him so he knew we were there with him. He relaxed for the first time. There was a peace on his face. It seemed the alternative was suiting him just fine. He had said earlier that week that he wanted to go see granny and that he was ready. As much as it hurt my heart to lose my grandpa, I truly know that he is in a better place.

While I have spent time with people shortly before their deaths my grandfather was the first death of a person that I was in the room to experience. It was sad. It tore my heart out. I can't begin to tell you how important my grandpa was to me. How he was our hero. In war and at home. He fought for our country from the age of 17. And when my Granny spent years fighting leukemia he once again showed heroism in how he stood by her side and loved her and took care of her. He was never the same after she left. I would have to say none of us were though.

When you go through something like that there are many things that you don't notice til its over. At some point we realized that he hadn't had his hearing aid in all week but that he could hear us. And he could see us with his big old baby blue eyes. He couldn't hear or see the doctor, but he could hear us and he could see us. It felt to me like a gift from God to make that week a little extra special.

This week I am putting a picture of my grandpa, mom, sister, and myself into my memorial box, since we all experienced this. The funny thing is my grandpa is pointing up in the picture. Not sure why, but fitting I suppose, as its where he went.

The Purple Lion

Memorial Box Monday Edition

The summer of 2008 before we were married, Bryan and I took our youth on a missions trip to Matamoros, Mexico with Adventures in Missions. It was an amazing missions trip and I will always remember some of the things that happened down there. The heat of the summer in Mexico was brutal, but every afternoon when we would start our worship session - the winds that were absent every other moment would pick up and a sweet breeze would flow through the tent on the gateway. There was the craziness of what happened after a drama our team put on... but the purple lion will always be my favorite story.

One of the things that AIM does is on the last day of a missions week they let your group have a prayer time and you can break out of the standard projects if you feel the Lord leading you to something. Bryan and I were with the same group, along with about 10 youth and we were very excited for this day. After a time of prayer our AIM crew chief asked us to one by one explain what God showed us during the prayer time.

We went around sharing what we saw and when they got to Bryan he nervously said that he saw a purple lion. Well of course we all chuckled at Bryan and probably joked about what an imagination the boy has. He nervously laughed and I am sure he was embarrassed that the rest of us seemed to be hearing from God and he didn't. Well,  we came to a consensus that we wanted to help a particular dog that we had all come across that week.

The dog in question was a chow-mix that seemed to have gangrene or something on its leg. The leg had been swollen and smelled bad enough that we could tell it was pretty bad. We wanted to find the owner and see if we could take the dog to a veterinarian and see what we could do to save the leg.

We had been working the street this dog lived on all week. We had been picking up trash, rebuilding a wall on a house on the street, helping out at the church on the street, doing vbs on that street, serving food to people and walking around the neighborhood talking to people. We hesitated once we found out that the dog owner was a woman who had turned our group away and wouldnt have anything to do with us, but we pushed forward with our plan.

When we told her that we wanted to take her dog to the vet and see what we could do for the leg she said yes and she would go too. So we loaded up the dog (Fify) into the back of our van, and the woman wanted to sit back there with him. Our guide brought us to a local vet and he examined Fify. He quickly told us there was nothing he could do and even if he tried to heal the infection the dog would likely die and suffer much more. So he asked if we wanted him to put her down.

  

After conversing with Fify's mom she agreed it was the best to do. They put Fify down and we loaded him back into our van to bring him home to bury. We also picked up a chihuahua that the woman named Taquito to replace her Fify. All of us were very sad that we were not able to help Fify and there were many tears the whole way back.

Once we returned Bryan and some of the boys dug a grave for Fify and made a cross to mark the spot. While they were digging we chatted with the woman, who for the life of me I can't remember her name right now. Where she had before not wanted to speak a word to us foreigners, she now spoke, cried, and entrusted us with her story. She told us about being married to someone who was wrapped up in a drug cartel and living a scary life. She told us her children had all gotten wrapped into drugs and she had lost them. She told us about ancient aztec relatives who had buried treasure in some mountain and she wanted to go look one day for it. She told us about her faith and we told her about ours. She told us about the things that kept her from believing in Christ and we tried to help her with those issues. In the end we left her with a bible and she said she wanted to read it.

The best part of the day though came after Fify was buried and we were playing with Taquito and chatting with her. Bryan looked down at some point and noticed something that caught his eye. He showed me and we both started laughing. There on the side of an old paint can outside the woman's house was a purple lion. Bryan had been teased for seeing such a funny thing in his prayer time but here it was clear as day, and certainly much more clear than anything the rest of us saw during prayer time. I hurried to take a picture of the purple lion so that Bryan would always remember the day the Lord showed him the lion. And how fitting that the image was the Lion. It is times like this that God reminds us that He is God and we are not - and that as crazy as things might sound when he tells them to us - if we follow His will it will all turn out the way He wanted.

I am putting a picture of the purple lion to remind us of the time God showed us a purple lion. And to remind us that when God leads us it might sound crazy to some but if we follow it will all turn out. Kind of like our adoption story - everyone may think we are crazy to adopt a child when we could more easily biologically birth one - but when God leads - we will follow.

Matthew 8:18-20
When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake. Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."

The Mountain

Memorial Box Monday Edition

I have always struggled with irrational fears. One of my fears has been of heights. When I heard my first mission trip working with our youth ministry would be in the mountains fear started to take root in me. I pushed it down and ignored it and continued planning. Driving up in one of the two vans, with Arlene behind the wheel, I knitted furiously, chugged chamomile, and tried to ignore my surroundings by watching movies on my laptop. At one point Arlene and the other leaders prayed for me at a gas station, asking for the peace that transcends all understanding.

After arriving we got busy and my fear started to subside a little as I got used to my surroundings. The next day after we finished our day's activities we were told we would be taken up to the top of the mountain to go swim in the waterfalls for bathing. I instantly pictured scary narrow roads almost completely vertical. We stopped at a local museum on the way and while we walked around my fear started to build. I remember walking up to a youth (my friend's son, who knew about my fears) and saying "pray for me im so scared" and he said "you dont have to be afraid, we'll protect you" and gave me a hug. This was enough to get me back in the car and head up the mountain.

While it wasn't quite the scary road I had pictured, the roads were indeed narrow, drastically curvy, and when you looked out the outside window it was straight down into rapids. We were also told stories of multiple cars going over the side, as the local missions director (G) raced around the corners. Then when we got there we had to climb down this cliff to get to the waterfalls where we would bathe. I am sure it took me like 10 times as long as anyone else to climb down and I was probably a mess by the time we left that day.

I struggled through the week but spent much time in prayer that kept me going. A couple days later we were driving back with the missions director from somewhere. He said to me "Kim - I don't know why but everytime I see you I picture a short bus." I chuckled thinking it was a joke and then immediately lost my breath and tears instantly came to my eyes. It was as if I had been sucker punched. I covered it well and no one seemed to notice the flood of emotion that came to me.

When G said that to me I got a picture in my head of the short bus I used to ride. Now before you start making jokes at my expense, I went to a private school, and they purchased old buses no longer used by public schools. They had purchased a short bus to pick up those of us kids who lived on the islands and called it the island bus. That was the bus of my nightmares. I asked G what he meant by that, and his response was somewhere around "do you think God is trying to tell you something about it? If so pray and ask Him to show you" I didn't need to ask though, I knew what it was about.

When we got back I went off to a quiet place on the property and prayed. I knew God was trying to tell me something about that time in my life. I was not a Christian on that bus, and I was very unhappy. I had struggles of my own in those years and the kids on that bus seemed to pick up on that and would tease me. This one boy in particular, Jamie, would pick and pick and pick until I started to cry and then they would ignore me. No one protected me. No one stuck up for me. I tried everything. I tried ignoring him. I tried giving it back to him. I tried joking it off. I eventually gave up and would just sit there until I cried. Every day for an hour there and an hour home and many many tears. I don't even remember all that he would make fun of me about. Whether it was my name, my height, or made up things. I remember at one time he started saying I was homosexual, and teased me for that. It was a very very sad time in my life. I started to hate my life, and school, and those around me who didn't stand up for me. 

My poor little sister probably got most of my aggression because I think I blamed her in some ways for not sticking up for me, or because I was jealous of her having friends. I seem to recall going home after that bus ride and picking on her, teasing her for her weight problem or anything I could think of. Like I said - I wasn't a very nice person back then. It makes me cry now to even think that I could do that. It was certainly not her fault that someone picked on me. She was younger, and as her older sister who wasnt very nice to her I can't imagine her putting herself at risk with Jamie to stick up for me. Anyhow... back to the story.

When I prayed on the side of this mountain in Tennessee asking God to show me what it is about this short bus experience that He was trying to share with me. I heard God speaking into my heart very clearly that he was there with me even then and that it broke his heart for me to hurt like I did then. That was perhaps the most alone I had ever felt in my life. The idea that I was possibly not alone hit me like a train. The fact that I didn't acknowledge him as God at that time, but he was there loving me and waiting for me and caring about me when I felt no one cared for me, yep it hit me like a train. That kind of love that I didn't feel like I was getting - in the hardest time in my life, was there and being offered by the king of the universe, even then. This intense feeling of how much the Lord loved me even before I loved him overwhelmed me on a mountaintop in eastern Tennessee.

The love was so overpowering that the fear that had crippled me the first couple of days of this 10 day missions trip to Appalachia was immeasurable. I remember practically flying the rest of the week, and even for months afterwards. I remember running down that cliff to the waterfall the very next day, the same cliff that had paralyzed me before. I remember actually driving one of the vans down those curvy roads laughing and singing along with the radio. I remember jumping off the rocks by the waterfalls and sliding down the natural slides with my friend, Arlene. The love that the Lord showed me that He had for me was so intense it took over every bit of fear.

this is actually a picture of me jumping into the water that week - graceful I am not

I had long heard the scriptures about the love that conquers all fear, and the peace that transcends all understanding, but never experienced it in such an intense way. I had grabbed a couple of the rocks on that mountain in TN and stuck them in my pocket. I have kept them to remember that Christ is my rock, and His love conquers my fear. That Christ will stand up for me, love me, and protect me, even when no one else will. So today I am putting one of these rocks into my memorial box!

For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline.

2 Timothy 1:7