You Can't Dig 200,000 Graves

I was reading an interview of a U.S. rescuer who was working with a search party in Haiti just after the 7.0 earthquake struck this poverty ridden nation.  He said "You can't dig 50,000 graves". Well here we are a week later and bodies have littered the streets...and many more than 50,000.  As the death toll has soared, I think of all the people who have lost a loved one and will never see them again. No goodbye, No funeral, No sweet words, No flowers....rather a mass grave in a vacant lot piled with 200 other bodies.

You can't dig 200,000 graves...And equally, you can't ignore 200,000 deaths, or you shouldn't. What has occurred in Haiti is a true tragedy. I don't really care what Pat Robertson has to say about it...What's happening is a tragedy and God's heart is broken too. These were His children. I feel that many American's think they are better than everyone else. Tragedy overseas feels unimportant, it is distant and the closest most American's will come to it is watching the six o'clock news tonight.  I feel differently on the subject. I weep at seeing pictures of bodies in the street. I rejoice, again weeping, as I watch them pull a child from the rubble 10 days after the earthquake. The country of Haiti didn't have room for more problems...more than 80% of the population was already below the poverty line.  But now here they are at their lowest of lows, and again they are kicked while they're down. So whose responsibility is it to help them get back up? 

I listen to the Big 98 with Jerry House every morning on the way to work. This week the phone lines were filled with calls of angry Americans stating "How could we give them 100 Million dollars when we have so much national debt?"...."This isn't  our problem!"....... "We are losing jobs left and right! We can't afford to help them!".....I literally became nauseous while listening to call after call from lazy, selfish, spoiled American's who have no agenda other than themselves.  Is our culture really this disgusting? I mean people are walking diseased streets, littered with dead bodies, with no food and water ... they have abruptly lost their families, their homes, their businesses, their everything and some Americans still feel that we should turn our eyes elsewhere. I'm ashamed for these people. I pity them because they are so blinded to how blessed the United States of America is. They have been spoon fed for so long that they don't really know that there is a world of hungry, cold, hurting people out there beyond the national borders.

Well the answer to the questions above is simple. WE ARE RESPONSIBLE. We are responsible for helping Haiti get back on their feet. We are responsible for helping them find homes for the hundreds of children orphaned by this earthquake. We are responsible for feeding and clothing and comforting them. We are all children of God. We are all brothers and sisters. We are all equal. And again, we ARE responsible.

"Anyone, then, who knows the good he ought to do and doesn't do it, sins" James 4:17

This week I read this verse and felt totally convicted of the times I have seen an opportunity to help and didn't. Whether it was inconvenience or vanity that held me from carrying out action - it doesn't really matter....it was wrong altogether. God doesn't instruct us to "Do good for others if its comfortable and fits nicely in our planner". The honest truth is that we are so blessed to be ABLE to help others...and this fact alone paints a perfect picture of why we are responsible for caring "for the least of these".  Close your eyes and imagine yourself in the middle of this tragedy, what if it were you?  It very easily could have been...but it wasn't....so get off your insanely blessed tush and get to work in whatever way you can to help out.

Matthew 25:40 

 ⁴⁰"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'

photo above from Logan Abassi/AFP/Getty Images, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jan/17/haiti-earthquake-humanitarian-disaster

A Song For Today

I've been repeatedly inspired by this song we sing in church a lot. I thought I'd post this today because It has been a great reminder for me of the life we were designed to live. This song brings to light the social injustice of our world & our responsibility to "GIVE with the life we've been GIVEN & go BEYOND religion to see the world be changed". I try to listen to it every day. I send thanks to Josh Bronleewee for introducing me to it AND for telling me that the piano in the intro was played by Lincoln's grandmother & the heartbeat in the intro was that of Lincoln's unborn child from an early ultrasound. I love hearing about the inspiration behind an amazing song. Every line of this song melts my heart and brings OUR true purpose to the forefront of my mind. How blessed am I today? Very. 

If you'd like to sample the song before purchasing it in iTunes, you can see parts of it here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CEfrzTN28o . But I recommend spending the 99 cents. :) Enjoy.

The Power Of Your Name 

written by Lincoln Brewster & Mia Fields

Surely children weren't made for the streets

And Fathers were not made to leave

Surely this isn't how it should be

Let your kingdom come

Surely nations were not made for war

Or the broken meant to be ignored

Surely this couldn't be what You saw

Let Your kingdom come

Here in my heart

And I will live to carry your compassion

To love a world that's broken

To be your hands and feet

And I will give with the life that I've been given

And go beyond religion to see the world be changed

By the power of Your Name

Surely life wasn't made to regret

And the lost were not made to forget

Surely faith without action is dead

Let Your Kingdom come

Lord break this heart

Jesus Your Name

Is a shelter for the hurting

Your Name

Is a refuge the weak

Only Your Name

Can take the undeserving

Jesus Your Name

Holds everything I need

Wake Up - It's 2010

Well, It's been quite a ride since my last post about getting involved in the community.  It seems my world has flipped upside down....in a good way. I have started a new job, which I am so grateful for. It allows for more time at home, less stress, and an emotionally warm work environment. I've started spending time on Monday nights with a group called People Loving Nashville, it's a small organization that fixes 150+ meals and feeds the homeless, both physically & spiritually. (www.peoplelovingnashville.com) Through spending time with these folks I have become much more aware of the needs of our community. My husband & I have also been blessed with an unbelievable small group that meets once a week. Through this group we have formed many new friends and have joined together to work as a team in showing the love of Christ in tangible ways to our community. I can't tell you how enriched my life has become since stepping out of my comfort zone and getting my hands dirty. I have asked God to burden my heart with the needs of people around me, and this has led to forming relationships with people I would have never otherwise known. God has had me knocking on doors of complete strangers, working New Year's Eve with friends rebuilding a bathroom & revamping a home for a family in need, and hugging new homeless friends on Blair Avenue after telling them how much love Jesus has for them.  My world has not changed, but my perspective has. These needs have been there all along but I'm acknowledging them for the first time.  I'm ashamed at the people I've walked by in the past and avoided eye contact, and the times I haven't cut someone slack and thought about what might be going on in their life.  The truth is - it doesn't matter.  It doesn't matter that I've wasted 23 years worrying about what outfit to wear or how much money I don't have to spend on something I probably didn't need in the first place. What matters is that I am still breathing and it's 2010.  My slate is clean, my eyes feel fresh, and my heart is ultimately vulnerable and burdened by the needs of our world....and our world essentially needs wholehearted unconditional love.  And whatever that entails, whatever route it takes to get it there, however much time it takes to create, I'm up for it.  


Deut. 15:7. If there is a poor man among you, one of your brothers, in any of the towns of the land which the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart, nor close your hand to your poor brother; but you shall freely open your hand to him, and generously lend him sufficient for his need in whatever he lacks.

Is. 58:10. "And if you give yourself to the hungry, and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness, and your gloom will become like midday. And the LORD will continually guide you, and satisfy your desire in scorched places, and give strength to your bones; and you will be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water whose waters do not fail."