A rush of thoughts come to my mind when yet another Amber Alert went off during dinner last night. A knot formed in my stomach. I wish it wasn't so. Fear strikes another family and another's safety is in the dark.

These fears found in the heart of the cities, in the hearts of my friends, in the heart of my own home has made my heart heavy lately. To stand in the gap is of greatest privilege yet it is not without a cost. I have only learned to put my life in Christ and on everything that he promises for I know he is faithful.

In the words of Isaiah recorded in Chapter 58:

“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
    with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry
    and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
    and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always;
    he will satisfy your needs in a sun-scorched land
    and will strengthen your frame.
You will be like a well-watered garden,
    like a spring whose waters never fail.
12 Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and will raise up the age-old foundations;
you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls,
    Restorer of Streets with Dwellings."

For Him and for them,
Maggie

I felt it again as I drove on the highway in the night having just completed my first photography crash course at the juvenile probation center as an instructor. I haven't felt that breaking of the heart for a long time but there it was again.  Shortly after I had turned out of the center I drove past adult shops on my right. Soon after, I drove past a homeless man crouched under the bridge. As I made my way to the highway I was overwhelmed by how within a minute of time I had crossed from a probation center with hallways of locked doors with metal hinges to the outside world where I could easily just grab a cup of coffee, sit underneath the stars, and travel to wherever I had the means to help me get to. I thought about the wrongs done to the kids in the centers. I thought about the injustices those kids had to witness and became a part of. I saw it in their eyes. Some kids have already seen too much. They've been angry, they've been hurt, they've been let down. They've been afraid.

Who will root for these kids? God, please move here. Teach me how to stand in the gap.

Entry from 1.25.15

"So lift your voice just one more time
If there’s any hope may it be a sign
That everything was made to shine
Despite what you can see
So take this bread and drink this wine
And hide your spirit within the vine
Where all things will work by a good design
For those who will believe"

-Beyond the Blue by Josh Garrels

Praying this over the refugee community tonight. Pray over each and every women I've met through The Community Cloth tonight. 

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I am thankful for night like this. Should the Lord choose to speak to me in the wee hours of the night still, I am here to stay and listen.

Tend to what is important, and not what is just urgent. In the light of all the tragedies and demands of needs in this world, I can only reckon that God, perfect in love, mercy, and justice, is in control. Or else perhaps restoration and healing would happen more often. We would perhaps foresee the ending of wars, planes lost would be found sooner, Amber Alerts wouldn't be the first thing that wakes me up in the morning before the day breaks. This morning, yet again, I was struck with sorrow that leads me to bury my face in my pillow to lift another "Amber" up in prayer. One is already one too many. Every good thing would've happened a lot quicker. Right? He is in control.

Yet still, He has won me over.

This race is a long and treacherous one. But one that is worth running and admitting our need for Him on every step for. The key is abiding and being steadfast. There is absolutely no fruit from the branches that do not abide. Just as most plants need continuous nutrients and water to grow and would wilt if it's deprived of sunlight/water/connection to its roots, we need to stay rooted and connected for healthy, abundant growth.

What God promises us isn't made just for safety and comfort. When he promises us that he will be with us until the end of the age, that he goes before us, that he is for us, that he will never leave or forsake us, that we need not to be afraid...I think about what all that is to face in this life that requires this kind of protection and assurance. The fullness of Him is seen in giving us our all. I must decrease and He must increase. The question that remains is that how much of His fullness does my heart yearn to witness and long for others to know? 

I have grown less eloquent in my words for one reason or another, but here I express in words of what I am reminded of again tonight: God's love for me and the world is as true and strong as the very first day He created it.  When He first created Adam and Eve. I wonder what their "First Look" was like?

Just got caught off track with a heart-warming McDonald's Pay With Love commercial. 

Wandered upon 1 Kings 19:

Elijah, when the Spirit woke him up and told him to eat and had enough strength to go on for forty day and nights. He still ended up staying in a cave. But it was where he stayed until he heard God in a whisper. I wonder if that whisper made the wind, the shaking, the fire obsolete to Elijah.

It has been hard to escape some thoughts lately: that life is short. Some lessons take some time to learn. Every community and life that I've gotten into is a privilege to hold in my heart. Every shoe I've had the chance to walk in by understanding or experience, are those God has entrusted me with. This is all His grace. There is so much brokenness in the world. I am not the first person to realize this. I see face to face, day to day, as I work in the bank how we toil through our lives. It makes me asks the question of "Is this it for those who haven't met Christ?" How can some people say that they're just over this thing called Christianity? Perhaps that very person that has led me to make this generalization just meant the ministries he was a part of when he was in college. Word for college ministries: teach and love your brother and your sister.  Build your ministries around walking alongside each other as they grow in their identity and calling in Christ. Build something in their hearts and pray that the Word of God will take root in a way where it won't just be something they'll one day just be "over it". God never just gets "over us" either. 

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Excerpt from The Three Callings of a Christian written by Andy Crouch:

On Saturday my friend and mentor Steve Hayner died at age 66 of complications from pancreatic cancer. Steve was one of the healthiest people I have ever met in every sense—emotionally, spiritually, physically. He had uncountable contingent blessings and served in all kinds of contingent ways as a pastor, professor, leader, and board member. No one made more of today than Steve. When he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer less than a year ago, he was very much in the middle of a significant assignment as president of a major institution, with much work left to be done, humanly speaking, and to all appearances the “calling” to do it. But all that was merely contingent—it could be otherwise, it was deeply dependent on myriad factors beyond any of our control, and now it is over.

But what really matters about Steve’s life is that wherever he went and whatever he did, he was an image bearer and image restorer. And he was so to his very last breath, as the family and friends who were closest to him can tell you. Very few people came away from even the briefest encounter with Steve, even very near the end of his life, without feeling loved, known, and heard.

At the end of this month many of us who knew him will gather to remember him and thank God for his life. We will talk very little, I suspect, about what he did—in that sense, Steve’s “vocation,” in the ordinary sense of the word, will be the most fleeting thing about him. What we will talk about is who he was, and who we are because we were touched by him. At the heart of the service will be the family that nurtured him and that was nurtured by him, and surrounding them will be Steve’s “first family,” the church.

We will sing, pray, grieve, and rejoice, and then we will go out to our calling: to bear the image and restore the image in the world, making the most of whatever is given us today. That is all, and that is more than enough.

"We are torn between nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known." - Carson Mccullers

I wonder if anyone else has ever questioned in words similar in one way or another, honestly, where God is trying to get at? Do people question the Why's? Sometimes it seems like no one is asking. No where feels like a safe place to raise this question recently. Someone will have a strong opinion or no opinion. Then I feel like I am left intimidated or empty. But perhaps it is the way the Lord has it for me now. There is only one safe place that my heart knows with certainty. He is the only safe place I can bring my why's and how's. I rest in this tonight.

Have I lost honor, if I question You? If I question You and wonder what Your purpose is in this trial?

Have I loved You less this past year? It grieves my spirit to think about how there is a great reality that I have loved You less than before. I know there is no guilt and condemnation in You, but I can't help but feel a kind of sorrow. I've never felt a distance from You. I just know you measure, perhaps success, by my love for You and those you love.

1 Cor 13:8

"Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away."

I was working on my desktop just yesterday as I heard my mom chuckle at something she was watching on her tablet. Some reason, that moment sounded sweeter than all the other times I've heard her laugh at a Youtube video. I walked on over with great sentiment and a sudden thought came up in my head with a kind of peace-filled clarity. 

There will be a day where He will lead me away from this comfort.

I think I have a slight idea to what the Spirit was trying to prepare me for. He has always been good at that. His words always come through a tender whisper.