God gave you...

God gave you his wallet. He gave you all the cards, and all the pin numbers... and He said, "Here, I want you to have these. You need this to live. I want to take care of you and provide for you... But I want you to do some other things. I want you to give it away. Not all of it, but I want you to share... Use it to provide and care for people in need. Share it with me to further my kingdom around the world. I want you learn to share. You have been given in abundance so you can share what you have been given." -M. Dirks, from his message today at Mosaic

"Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty. Everything in the heavens and on earth is yours, O Lord, and this is your kingdom. We adore you as the one who is over all things. Wealth and honor come from you alone, for you rule over everything. Power and might are in your hand, and at your discretion people are made great and given strength. “O our God, we thank you and praise your glorious name! But who am I, and who are my people, that we could give anything to you? Everything we have has come from you, and we give you only what you first gave us! We are here for only a moment, visitors and strangers in the land as our ancestors were before us. Our days on earth are like a passing shadow, gone so soon without a trace." 1 Chronicles 29: 11-15

everyone on earth

“You faithfully answer our prayers
with awesome deeds,
O God our Savior.
You are the hope of everyone on earth...”
Psalm 65:5

run like hell...

(...and look like it, too?!)

my co-workers and I ran the "run like hell" half marathon in portland yesterday... and I got my best time yet ;) perhaps it was the fish net tights?

the girls who take fun pictures...and dad!

the girls who take fun pictures...

mom, sisi boom, and I earlier this afternoon...
sorry, dad~ they tend to work out better without you ;)

awake

The past 96 hours:
48 were spent at work
16 were spent sleeping...
and at 4:08 am somehow my mind is buzzing and I am alive with energy....

despite the times of exhaustion, my job is fantastic!

O Lord Jesus, you who came to us to show the compassionate love of your Father, make your people know this love with their hearts, minds, and souls. So often we feel lonely, unloved, and lost in this valley of tears. We desire to feel affection, tenderness, care, and compassion, but suffer from inner darkness, emptiness, and numbness. I pray tonight: Come Lord Jesus, come. Do not just come to our understanding, but enter our hearts- our passions, emotions, and feelings- and reveal your presence to us in our inmost being. As long as you remain absent from that intimate core of our experience, we will keep clinging to people, things, or events to find some warmth, some sense of belonging. Only when you really come, really touch us, set us ablaze with your love, only then will we become free and let go of all false forms of belonging. Without that inner warmth, all our ascetical attempts remain trivial, and we might even get entangled in the complex network of our own good intentions. O Lord, I pray that your children may come to feel your presence and be immersed in your deep, warm, affectionate love. And to me, O Lord, your stumbling friend, show your mercy. Amen.
~Henri Nouwen

consider

I read this article today called "Doing Short-Term Missions without Doing Long-Term Harm" which talks about the explosion of short term mission trips ministering to the poor around the world. Although this is not new information to me, I think it is important to reflect on. Here are some highlights I found worth sharing!

~Most STM trips violate basic principles of effective poverty-alleviation and have the potential to do considerable harm both to low-income people and to ourselves.
~One of the key principles for effective ministry in low-income communities is discerning whether the context calls for “relief,”—short-term handouts to people in an emergency situation—or “development”—walking with people over time in a way that brings reconciliation of foundational relationships with God, self, others, and creation.
~Relief and development are very different sorts of interventions, requiring different skills, approaches, human and financial resources, and time. It is not always easy to discern which intervention is appropriate, but a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself the following question: Are the people in this community capable of helping themselves? If the answer is “yes,” then relief is not the right intervention.
~Most low-income people are suffering from chronic issues that may affect their self-image and sense of purpose. Such feelings of inferiority, hopelessness, and meaninglessness cannot be overcome by handouts from a STM team or anybody else.
~STM trips often make the serious mistake of providing relief in contexts in which development is the appropriate intervention. Providing handouts of goods and services in such a situation can do enormous damage by undermining the willingness and capacity of low-income communities to be stewards of their own human and physical assets.
~Instead of focusing on the gifts and abilities that God has placed in low-income communities, the implicit assumption of many STM trips can be, “We must come in and build houses for you, because you don’t have the materials or know-how to do so yourselves. You need us to show you how to run Vacation Bible Schools in your community because we know more than you do.” This “needs-based” approach exacerbates the feelings of inferiority that are rampant in many low-income communities and can inflate the sense of superiority of the STM teams.
~Every STM team should ask itself: What are we doing to the testimony of the local church that already exists in this community? The reality is that often the local churches in poor communities cannot compete on the same stage with U.S. suburban churches in terms of their ability to put on a glitzy program. When STM teams come in with an abundance of resources and glossy Vacation Bible School materials, they look better and are often more attractive than the local church. STM teams need to ask: How can we be less on the front stage and more supportive of the local church and its ministry?
~Rather than going as “doers,” some powerful dynamics can be unleashed if STM teams go as “learners” from the poor or as “co-learners” with the poor. Going as a learner emphasizes the gifts which poor people have to share with others: the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and social resources that God has already placed in their community.
~Listening to people and asking them to share their insights affirms their dignity and reduces the tendencies towards pride on the part of the outsiders. Furthermore, the poor really do have something to teach us, for they have unique insights on what it means to trust in a sovereign God to “give us this day our daily bread.”

Source: The Chalmers Centre at Covenant College. The Chalmers Center for Economic and Community Development at Covenant College trains the church worldwide how to minister to the poor without creating dependency.

chocolate chai and thrombocytopenia

sweet
cold
rich
smooth
icy
calm
relieved
ordinary
famililar
scattered
stories
laughs
comfortable
easy
uneasy
cautious
on edge
watchful
hoping
nervous
fragile
careful
warning
teaching
waiting
uncertain

hood to coast

the largest running relay in the world~2 days~1000 international teams~12,000 runners~36 legs of a 197 mile race~crowded, painted vans~one hour of sleep in a field, a van, or on a high school gym floor~headlamps~reflective vests and blinking lights~cool mountain air~finishing a run at 11:40pm~the smell of the salt on the beach~eating breakfast at 2am~group cheers~no time to stretch~total exhaustion~steep hills~layers and changes of sweaty clothes~running shoes everywhere~cow bells out the van windows~cheers from strangers~falling asleep 10 minutes before running a hill~learning the real meaning of roadkill~




it's such a crazy adventure they're making a documentary about it! check out this clip:
www.hoodtocoastdocumentary.com/teaser

rafts and canoes

yesterday we floated down the deschutes river all afternoon, and canoed sparks lake at night! juice and i only got in minor trouble from our canoe guide, but i think it may have made our night all the more fun.... ;)
i love central oregon!

thankful today

flannel sheets~ sleeping in till 7:40~ cool, salty air~ fog~ 8am run in the woods along the ocean~ coffee with vanilla soy milk~ music~ phone calls~ the gray and white of the ocean waves~ candles~ friends~ blueberries~ things to look forward to~ the Word of God~ journaling~ almond butter and bananas

“What can I give back to God for all the blessings He’s poured out on me?
psalm 116, the message

change the world

"Never deny the power of a small group of committed individuals to change the world. Indeed that is the only thing that ever has." ~Margaret Mead
Juicy~ thanks~ and thanks for being one of those people... :)

thoughts I needed today

Thoughts on prayer from Henri Nouwen; taken from “Letting Go of All Things.”

“...we realize that the closer we come to God, the stronger will be God’s demand to let go of the many “safe” structures we have built around ourselves. Prayer is such a radical act because it requires us to criticize our whole way of being in the world, to lay down our old selves and accept our new self, which is Christ...In the act of prayer, we undermine the illusion of control by divesting ourselves of all false belongings and by directing ourselves totally to the God who is the only one to whom we belong. Prayer therefore is the act of dying to all that we consider to be our own and of being born to a new existence which is not of this world. Prayer is indeed a death to the world so that we can live for God.”

dinner part 2

oh, sisi... i couldn' resist!

mmm...

sisi.. want to come over and have dinner with me?

carols at 5 am

My job is a riot. This morning I went to visit a nurse on another unit I worked on last week. Somehow, we both ended up in his patient’s room, where his patient proceeded to ask me my favorite christmas carol, and before I could answer, he was standing up; his arms raised and eyes closed, and belting out “Amazing Grace” and “Silent Night” so loudly that the other nurses asked what was going on when we finally left the room 20 minutes later. Never mind that it was 5 am. I laughed so hard I cried. We clapped when he finished and told him how beautiful his voice was. I told him I had better get back to my patients upstairs, but thanked him for his entertainment. “What a shame...” he said, sadly. I thought so too. That was the highlight of my night. ;)

today

"He it is Who spreads out the northern skies over emptiness and hangs the earth upon nothing. He holds the waters bound in His clouds [which otherwise would spill on earth all at once], and the cloud is not rent under them. He covers the face of His throne and spreads over it His cloud. He has placed an enclosing limit upon the waters at the boundary between light and darkness. The pillars of the heavens tremble and are astonished at His rebuke. He stills or stirs up the sea by His power, and by His understanding He smites proud Rahab. By His breath the heavens are garnished; His hand pierced the swiftly fleeing serpent. Yet these are but a small part of His doings, the outskirts of His ways, the mere fringes of His force, the faintest whisper of His voice! Who dares contemplate or who can understand the thunders of His full, magnificent power?" Job 26:7-14

the plan

It is easy to be overwhelmed with all that is wrong in the world. Violence, injustice, poverty, war. Children without parents, people who suffer with chronic illness, domestic abuse. Genocide. Corrupt governments. The list could go on...
Many wonder how a good God can allow these things to go on. Many wonder, “Does God even care? and if so, why do so many suffer?”

It is all difficult to comprehend and understand. Overwhelming.

But the Bible assures us that God does care. In many places it shows that his heart breaks for those who are oppressed and who suffer. The Psalms often speak of this. In Psalm 9, it says: “The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed...He DOES NOT IGNORE the cry of the afflicted.” And in Psalm 72 it tells us that “He will rescue the poor when they cry to him; he will help the oppressed who have no one to defend them. He feels pity for the weak and the needy, and he will rescue them. He will redeem them from oppression and violence, for their lives are PRECIOUS to him.”

Yet it is still hard to understand why all of these things continue. It is hard to see them happening firsthand, to read about them in the newspaper, to see images on TV, to have a conversation with someone in the midst of suffering.

I often wonder how to proceed. A story in John 6 came to mind; in which Jesus feeds five thousand people.

“After this, Jesus crossed over to the far side of the Sea of Galilee, also known as the Sea of Tiberias. A huge crowd kept following him wherever he went, because they saw his miraculous signs as he healed the sick. Then Jesus climbed a hill and sat down with his disciples around him. It was nearly time for the Jewish Passover celebration. Jesus soon saw a huge crowd of people coming to look for him. Turning to Philip, he asked, “Where can we buy bread to feed all these people?” He was testing Philip, for he already knew what he was going to do. Philip replied, “Even if we worked for months, we wouldn’t have enough money to feed them!” Then Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up. “There’s a young boy here with five barley loaves and two fish. But what good is that with this huge crowd?” “Tell everyone to sit down,” Jesus said. So they all sat down on the grassy slopes. The men alone numbered about 5,000. Then Jesus took the loaves, gave thanks to God, and distributed them to the people. Afterward he did the same with the fish. And they all ate as much as they wanted. After everyone was full, Jesus told his disciples, “Now gather the leftovers, so that nothing is wasted.” So they picked up the pieces and filled twelve baskets with scraps left by the people who had eaten from the five barley loaves.” (John 6:1-13).

Jesus asks me, “What do you have?”
(five barley loaves and two fish... I answer. But what good are these in this situation?!)
Jesus says that I don’t have to provide what is needed. I often cannot. He takes the little, insignificant amount of whatever I have, and HE PERFORMS THE MIRACLE. He tells me that if I would only offer what I have, He will do the rest. I don’t have to worry that I am not fit to feed five thousand people. I don’t have the ability to heal my friend who suffers in pain. I am not able to end the domestic violence in my neighbors home. I can’t take on all the orphans in Africa, or heal those dying of AIDS. Yet I CAN offer to Jesus what I have. I can visit the sick. I can refer my suffering neighbor to someone who can help. I can hold the hand of someone who is lonely. I can support those who care for people on the other side of the world, and those who care for the orphans in Africa. I can pray. And I can expect that Jesus will take what little I offer, and perform the miracle. He will do the rest.

When I am overwhelmed and wonder what the plan is to end this suffering and injustice and pain, I am reminded that I AM THE PLAN. Proverbs 31 says, “Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves; ensure justice for those being crushed. Yes, speak up for the poor and helpless, and see that they get justice.” In Matthew 23, Jesus calls justice, mercy, and faith the more important aspects of the law. Isaiah 1 says, “Learn to do good. Seek justice. Help the oppressed. Defend the cause of orphans. Fight for the rights of widows.” Jesus asks Simon, one of his disciples three times, “Do you love me?” and three times Simon says, “yes, Lord, you know I love you.” “Feed my lambs- Take care of my sheep,” Jesus commands. (John 21).
So I think about the questions:

For what purpose was I redeemed?
What is it that I can offer?
What is He asking me to do?
What is He calling me to stand up for?

when I'm 41...

I want to have a small fraction of this woman’s spirit and drive. Her competitiveness, dedication, determination, and discipline are my current athletic inspiration. Dara Torres will swim for the US in Beijing in a few weeks. She is 41 years old, has a two year old daughter, has already won nine Olympic medals, and the only swimmer to be competing in the Olympics for the fifth time. Her qualifying time in the 100 free was 2.47 seconds faster than her Olympic time twenty years ago!

And her abs?! Don’t even get me started...

Read more about her in this weeks TIME; “100 Olympic Athletes to Watch.”