Rescue. Restore. Renew.

I’m going on a trip that I’ve wanted to take for a long time. Lord willing, on June 4th I will board a plane and be on my way to Haiti!
I will be going with Help One Now, formerly Help End Local Poverty, and other members of Soma Austin Community Church. I am so excited as we will be helping to build a house, get information on new children for the Help One Now child sponsorships, visiting the largest Tent City and more! (I am also totally looking forward to the food and coffee!)

I am asking any and all to pray for all of us going on the trip, that we would bring in all necessary funds to go, that God will prepare our hearts to serve and love, and that we would be a blessing to those we come into contact with.
(Wait, did this blog post just turn into a support letter? Why yes, yes it did.)
I am also asking you to prayerfully consider donating to this trip to make going a real possibility. The total cost of the trip itself is $2100. $800 of it is due this month and I cant do this on my own. (Update: I raised the $800 needed in April for travel expenses. My next deadline for $600 is coming up soon.) Its pretty great that we’re not really called to do much on our own though.

If you would like to donate right this second, you can! Click here to make a donation through Paypal. (Please note that Paypal charges 3%, so add 3% if you are looking g to donate a specific amount.) Or you can send checks to Help End Local Poverty at

Help End Local Poverty

PO Box 26716

Raleigh, NC 27611

Thank you for taking the time to read this, pray and give.

I will more than likely post a few blog posts on this trip after I return. So be on the lookout for them!

Just Write – Kids & Forgiveness

Today was one of those days.
The ones no mom really likes to talk about because it plays into their fears of not being a good mom. The ones that beat you up one side and down the other. The ones that require extra hugs and apologies to ever forgiving little faces. Their forgiving kisses make it sting a little more, when you raised your voice, when you expected too much.
It was a rough day, Monday’s usually aren’t the easiest, getting back into a routine and all. I had too much planned, thought I needed to get it all done, forgot to just play.
So there was fighting, whining, time outs and tears. That’s the easy part to dwell on, but there were also hugs and kisses and giggles and sweet quiet moments.
I’m not perfect and I’d be crazy to expect perfection from a 2 and 4 year old. So there will be these days, but as we grow in love and knowledge of Christ, Lord willing, they will be few and far between.
I rest in that its ways worse in my head, that I serve a forgiving and redeeming God and that tomorrows a new day.
His mercies are new every morning. Selah.

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Cold & Heavy / Just Write #3

He’s almost excited as I am to be in long sleeves. He keeps spinning around saying his version of “Look at me!” It’s something different, he can’t remember wearing sleeves, I put his shirt on him and he looked at them, tugged a little and realized they were in the right place.

It’s a beautiful morning, chilly, a great day for a long walk to the park.

But my heart is still heavy after reading about Katia last night. I still can’t get her out of my head.

I don’t really want to.

It’s too easy to.

Letting  things slip away that shouldn’t be allowed to. This is sprinkled over the spectrum of my life.

More than letting things slip, I detach myself from them, unwilling to feel the ache. Numb traded for ache. Most of the time I realize my misstep. Because there’s not much beauty that can be found without pain, not much life can be found without ache.

Breathe deep.

Embrace the ache, beauty, pain, life.

Live. Really live.

That’s what I want today.

                                    

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Ready for Change, Living Now

It’s the in between that always gets me. The in between of long hair and short. The in between of promise and fulfillment. And this morning the in between of warm and cold.It’s the feeling of being on the cusp of new. The faint taste of change.Where I lose myself if I’m not careful. Where the daily routines are changing, but not, a little more ebb than flow.

Where patience & planning are vital. Patience and planning, waiting and hoping, moody things, they are. When you cozy up to them, they are your best friends, a little trying, but there for you. Try to not turn your back on them, it’s never pretty.

Enjoying the early morning crisp in the air through an early morning walk, a hint of what’s to come.

I’m ready for the full on, the change, the new. Trying not to lose the now at the same time, that’s a tough one.

Realizing I’m not really in the in between – monumental. The here and now is my latest new. Maybe I should try to not throw it out with the promise of more new.

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Quiet House

This was my 1st ”Just Write” post. It’s a fun way to get thoughts to paper, even if they are not monumental thoughts.

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It’s quiet. That doesn’t happen very often around here.

One’s a sleep, one’s playing a toddler video game in the other room. it’s nice, peaceful.

I’m sitting here drinking my sweet tea and thanking God for His grace and praying this afternoon is better than this morning. I woke up with a terrible headache and a cranky baby. It was 530am. I don’t do 5′s or 6′s well. I just don’t. So I was gruff and impatient and blamed my kids for it. Dumb.

Coffee, worship, outside = good medicine. Sidewalk chalk and all.

And then a bath, I don’t think I like dirty, maybe just since I rug doctored the fool out of these carpets not so long ago.

I look around and my house is a mess, I wonder why I am writing instead of cleaning. Oh yeah, it’s a lot more fun.

Boston’s swim report card from this past Summer is sitting on the desk beside me. He got a very satisfactory report and then started swimming on his own the following week.

My boys are getting big.

Boston is running around the living room now, the video games can’t hold him for long when he really wants to get on the computer for nickjr. games.

He dresses himself now. Lakers jersey and all. Lord, he’s cute. His hair smells like baby shampoo.

He’s patting my back and hoping I will get off of here so he can play.

 

A Dark Secret of Mine

Can I let you in a little secret? It’s deep, dark and I’m confident that not many other people deal with this, ever. So here it is: I am terrible at waiting.

There, it’s out.

What’s that? Oh, you don’t really know that many people who are very good at it? Oh, well okay then, that makes me fee a little better, well, no, not really.

When I first heard of this waiting upon the Lord thing, maybe 16 or so years ago, I pictured sitting and waiting, maybe looking out the window for something coming in the distance. I didn’t realize that waiting was not a pause button, but a chance to seek the Lord for guidance, a chance to grow closer to Him in an effort to walk closer with Him, which would inevitably have me walking in the right direction. Still, 16 years later, I find my waiting taking the form of entitled laziness, waiting for something to walk in my front door and present itself to me. I have to remind myself that doing nothing and waiting are two very different things.

There are things that God has placed on my heart that have been shoved around due to my lack of wanting to wait. “If it can’t happen now, I will make it happen” or “if it can’t happen now, just forget about it.” These subtle thoughts sneak in and strangle plans, desires and hopes too often. When I notice this starting to happen, I know that I have to realign my thinking and reiterate the true definition of waiting. I have to remind myself that waiting is not sitting around, doing nothing. It is praying, thinking, planning, getting ready, though not yet moving on to the end product until its time. That’s the hard part for me, when I feel, according to my own thought process, that I have done everything I need to do to get to a certain place in my life or attain a certain goal. So I start to stress and worry and act all silly and forget this: “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the LORD.” Jeremiah 29:11-14 reminds me that He has my future in His hands and if I seek Him and wait on His timing that those things will come to pass.

So my prayer for you and myself is that rather than waiting being full of stress and clock checking, we will let it be full of hope and expectation, knowing that God loves us, cares for us and has His best laid up for us.

Mom & a Tear Streaked, Painted Face

It’s funny some of the random things you remember from your childhood. I remember spending a fun day with my mom out somewhere and getting my face painted. Out of my excitement I started to run across the street before her. She, of course, screamed my name, scaring the mess out of me, sending me running back to her. I think I cried off the fresh face paint. At the time, of course, I didn’t really understand why things changed so quickly from happiness to tears. But when I realized I wasn’t in trouble, but she was just protecting me, it quickly went back to happy again and then the memory fades out like a dream.

Just in a rabbit trail of thought, I wondered why times like that stick out the brightest in my foggy memory and I realized that it’s not that my mom yelled at me a lot or that I was unhappy a lot. But it’s that the times surrounding those scarce moments are times of love and security. They tend to not stand out because they are the norm for my mom. She is an incredibly caring, gentle, compassionate person. She is funny and silly and wise. She is so much of what I aspire to be. I think of her often while dealing with my boys. Praying that when they look back and remember the loud moments, those moments are quickly drowned in a sea of love like they are for me.

I’m so proud to be Debbie Cantrell’s daughter. To be like her, to look like her. She’s always there for me when I need her. Always with something to offer from her own life and almost always ends up pointing me to God and His Word. That is what I am most thankful for. Her love for her God that she passed on to me. The very most important thing from a parent to a child. Something I am eternally grateful for.

Just now she sent me a text, “I did it! Completed my first Susan G. Komen walk!” She walked alongside a friend that was recently diagnosed with Cancer. She’s that kind of person. If someone needs anything, love, support, food, whatever, she snaps into action. Yeah, you’re thinking it, so you can just go ahead and say it, she’s pretty awesome.

I haven’t even touched on what an outstanding Beenah (Grandmother) she is. (Maybe that’ll be a post idea for Grandparent’s Day.)

Happy Mother’s day, Mom. You’re amazing. I love you.

It’s Almost my Birthday!!

It’s been awhile!

That took me down memory lane just now. I saw myself sitting on my bed writing in my diary. I would start out with an apology for not writing in so long…an apology…to my diary. Ha, kids. But, I digress.

I felt like for my first post back I needed something really worth while to write about. I think I’ve got something : My birthday. Ha, no, I’m not really that self-centered, read on, you’ll see what I’m talking about.

I have been loving seeing the daily photos from Charity Water. If you follow me on Twitter, you have probably seen me retweet the photos on a regular basis. The very idea that people – way too many people – live without any access to clean water and are infected or killed by the dirty water that they do have access to is such a foreign concept to me. Even after hearing stories, seeing photos and donating to clean water campaigns. It’s still so foreign and so easy to forget. But that’s what I don’t want to do, forget. Somewhere in this the idea of “donating my birthday” to Charity Water really stuck with me. I am more than thankful that I have people in my life that love me and want to celebrate me. But in realizing my true lack of need, I want to help those in true need.

So here’s the deal. If you wanted to get me something or even if you didn’t, use it as an opportunity to donate to Charity Water. You can go to my Charity Water page here to learn more about Charity Water and donate.

World Water Day

Today is World Water Day! And if I am going to be completely honest with you, I’m unsure if I had heard of WWD until yesterday. It’s nothing too brand new either, not sure where I have been. Of course, I have come to realize that I was quite unaware of many things until these past few months. But that is a story for another day.

I do vaguely remember there being a day here and there that conserving water was more emphasized, so I’ll chalk that up to my first run ins with WWD. World Water Day can definitely be observed in that way. But I am choosing to celebrate it by participating in The Adventure Project’s effort to raise $10,000 for clean water in India.

The Adventure Project’s website outlines it: “One third of all hand pumps installed in the last twenty years in developing countries are now broken. And 4,000 children die every day because of lack of clean drinking water. We feel that’s unacceptable. So we’re thinking differently. Instead of drilling more wells, we’re using our charitable gifts for something revolutionary – to train and employ hand pump mechanics. The mechanics earn an income, bringing themselves out of poverty, and they save lives – turning water back on for thousands of people each year.”

That is exciting to me! Not only bringing clean water, but sustainable income to provide for families and communities.

I am donating $20 this morning toward this campaign. I am asking 10 of you to donate $20 as well, bringing them that much closer to their goal of $10,000. If they reach $10,000, the money will be matched! $20,000 will bring 7,200 people clean water each year!! Even if you can’t give $20, I encourage you to give something today and in the future. Help bring clean water to families around the world to safeguard them from preventable diseases.

You don’t have to tell me how much, but comment below and let me know if you donate. (Just for my own curiosity!)

A simple, harmless prayer

I am sitting here researching The Abba Fund, a not for profit organization that gives interest free loans to couples trying to adopt. I am reading over their website and I click on the “How You Can Help” tab and find myself reading this section over and over.

• Pray for the orphan.
• Pray for those caring for them temporarily.
• Pray for adoptive families.
• Pray for churches.
• Pray for us as we seek to help orphans by helping families and churches make adoption a reality.
• Pray about what God would have you do.

The last one sticks out to me. “Pray about what God would have you do.” What he would have me do. It’s something that I have been going over and over in my head this past week. And if you really think about it, it’s a bold statement. What he would have you do; not if he would have you do something. Last weekend I heard Esther Havens, a humanitarian photographer, speak about a major shift in her life from simply taking pictures to getting involved in those people’s stories and doing something about them. She said, “Adoption is a calling, but orphan care is a mandate for everyone.” So, I guess it’s just something God’s doing int me right now, but it’s something that I would encourage you to think about and pray about as well. There’s much to be done and if we would pray that simple line, what amazing things might happen?