This Little Light of Mine

Warning: I wrote this in an inspired frenzy and now I do not have time to edit. Real sorry to all my English peeps out there.

I'm sipping coffee and reading the news at Panera this morning.

An older gentleman has just come in with his daughter who appears to be in her early 40's. He kind of reminds me of one of the older guys from that HBO Mafia show who used to kill lots of people but now he just smokes cigars in dark corners of bars. He's got a thick Wisconsin accent, bushy white hair, sweat pants, and a crucifix around his neck. She's exotic. Long dark hair and a very thick French accent. Maybe she's not his daughter after all. They sip their coffee quietly- they both seem to be thinking. She speaks up.

"Did you hear about Osama Bin Laden?"

"I don't know. I heard he might be dead or something."

-Insert me-

YOU DON"T KNOW? ARE YOU AMERICAN? DO YOU OWN A TV? ARE YOU NOT BASKING IN NATIONAL PRIDE?

"Maybe he is in the mafia," I think to myself.

"Yeah, he's dead, isn't that amazing. They killed him in the middle of the night. He lived in a mansion. I can't believe it. A mansion. It only took forty minutes. Do you think Pakistan knew he was there?"

He's not listening.

"So the radio station I listen to at night, well they have a Sunday morning organic lawn care show. And basically, honey, we are just trapping our families with chemicals. We're just asking to bathe ourselves in cancer. You know you have to get organic fertilizer. You just have to. Otherwise the kids will die," my mafia man is deeply concerned about this organic gardening business.  He squints his eyes and he leans across the table- like he is about to disclose national security secrets- and in an agitated whisper he says,  "No wonder we're all dying from cancer. I mean it's in all the grass and all around the house and we're just asking to be poisoned. It's a husband and wife. It's their show and they said if you just take a sip of "ortho roundup" you will be dead in 20 minutes. 20 minutes! Then this man calls in to say he started a lawn care business and goes to the supply house and they tell him to buy a rubber suit to wear and a gas mask and rubber gloves and boots and he thinks it's crazy- and get this- they made him sign papers saying he refused to buy any of the chemical protection from them. Well turns out the man only has a year left to live. A YEAR! @*@# *$ *#& (expletive, expletive) corporations. It's all big business. It's what Republicans are doing to the country honey."

Well, I tried to act like I was laughing at something on my computer screen- because I couldn't help but laugh listening to this conversation. Here I think he's straight up in the mafia and all he's concerned with is organic gardening.

***

My heart is heavy this morning.

Some of you emailed me a few months ago to see where I had gone because I stopped blogging for about a month.

Truth is, I was overwhelmed.

Not with my life or Annie or Ryan or schedules or money or anything like that... I was simply overwhelmed with the brokenness of the world. Every time I would sit to write a blog about one natural disaster, something else would happen.  Then something else. Then something else.

I talked about empathy last week- empathy and healing are my spiritual gifts. The Bible says these are gifts given to us by God once we become believers. They mark our lives, our calling, and hopefully they leave a mark on the world we live in. My particular gift is somewhat of a blessing and a curse because it is heavy. I see brokenness and I don't sympathize with it, I empathize. I feel it in my bones and deep in my soul. I grieve for people as if God were in my body grieving through me. And I often find myself deep in prayer and mourning for people who are hurting. (Those with the spiritual gift of empathy and healing must be careful to not allow depression to become confused with the deep emotions that come alongside the practice of these gifts).

You might think that a musician would have a spiritual gift of artistry or leadership or music even... but I have often found myelf on stage watching as people in the audience are healed through music. And every hug I give at the end of the night; every prayer or conversation with someone who needs a friend; well this is the spiritual gift of healing in action. It just happens to come out through music and it exists in unison with the gift of empathy. The blessed curse of deeply taking on the pain of another.

And lately, I have taken on the pains and groans of the world...

So as the rest of the country celebrates the death of Osama Bin Laden- I find my heart rather heavy this morning.

Don't misunderstand me: for a girl who doesn't affirm the death penalty, this is one person whose evil needed to be stopped.

Still, the heaviness of the world fills me up today. The devastation in Alabama and all over the south as tornadoes have robbed people of their loved ones and all their worldly possessions. The Mississippi river, so swollen that either an entire town in Illinois will disappear as the water pours forth or an entire part of the state of Missouri- farmer's livelihood will be flooded to save people. Either way, the loss is great. There is Japan. Families who still can't wrap their minds around the loss they have endured. Thousands wiped off the face of the earth in a wave. The death of Osama means retaliation, perhaps the likes of which we have not seen since 9/11. Our military deployed to Afghanistan are now in greater danger than ever before. Cancer. Job loss.

Need I go on?

Whether on a personal level or global level-

Our world is so broken. So far from what God intended.  And something deep in me groans and grieves.

As I sit here in Panera this morning, I'm grateful for the comic relief of an old mafia man who could care less about Osama Bin Laden and is quite simply terrified about the chemicals in his garden.

***

I meet a lot of people who tell me they are just ready for the end of times to come so they can get out of this world's brokenness. So many who tell me that they don't watch the news because it's just depressing. So many who tell me they are afraid for their kid's futures. And I get it, I really do. I feel it deep in my bones. The pain and fear this world can unleash on us.

But I am reminded, more than ever, of Galations 6:9

And let us not be weary in well doing: for in due season we shall reap, if we faint not.

Is our world broken? Yes.

Is that scary and overwhelming sometimes? Yes.

Is the answer to give-up hope, insulate ourselves from the harsh realities, and pray for the end to come?

No. I don't believe it is.

Instead, we do not grow weary in doing good. We do not faint. We do not hide light for the sake of our own personal safety or comforts. We shine brighter. We live harder. We hope more deeply. We choose life that we might live. (Deuteronomy 30:19).

I'm not calling you to grieve for the whole world as I do- that is my spiritual gift (and not the one I would have picked, mind you)- but I am encouraging you today to not lose heart. Instead, look at the brokenness around you and decide today to be light in a dark place. Decide today, that through God's strength, you will not faint. You will not cloister and fear and disappear.

More than ever I pray that God raises up men and women who love him and love math. Science. International politics. Engineering. Research. Disaster relief. Medicine. Adoption. Nursing. Education.

That God raises up a generation of believers who do not pray for the end in the midst of all the suffering, but pray to be used here and now to be a part of keeping His hope alive while we inhabit the earth.

And it's overwhelming. It is. Where do we even begin?

Well, old-man-mafia taught me a huge lesson this morning.

While the whole world is talking Osama Bin Laden, dangit, he is gonna talk about the potential of dying via ortho roundup and other dangerous chemicals that are lurking in the gardens of America!

That's his thing. Organic gardening.

What's yours?

(Really, what's yours? I've done a lot of free online surveys, and have found this one to be the most helpful: spiritual gift survey. You should take a few minutes and do the test yourself.)

***

It's easy to look at all the things we can't do in response to Japan, Alabama, Tsunami's, military family deployments, soaring cancer rates....

But that would make us faint, wouldn't it?

We gotta start thinking about what we can do.

What CAN WE DO?

What CAN YOU DO?

What is your thing?

You have one, you know.

You do. You have a gift to offer the world. Big or small. You have it. A smile. A gift of hospitality. Being the one man in the office that people can trust to have integrity. Building a house. Helping to find a cure for cancer. Holding orphans. Being a friend to those in your school who are bullied. Writing music that heals. Enforcing security. Getting in your truck and driving to Alabama to help clean-up. Using your abundance of money to put food on the shelves of your local food pantry.

Or maybe it's organic gardening.  Maybe your thing is to get the chemicals out of our food and help us- at least us Americans- to become healthy again.

It can be anything, the important thing is that it is something.

What is your gift and how are you using it?

You have a gift and let me tell you, now more than ever, the world needs you to use it.

For the good of humanity and for the glory of God- do not be overwhelmed by brokenness, do not grow weary in doing good sweet friends... please, press on.

You have light inside of you that is begging to be poured out.

The world needs you to shine today-

Two Cute Stories Plus Three

Warning: This post talks about "private parts." You have been warned.

She's laying on the couch, no diaper, legs splayed open.

Touching her private parts she says, "Owie mommy. Owie mommy." There is no diaper rash,  no redness, nothing that I can really see. But she insists. "Owie mommy. Owie mommy."

Being the touchy-feely mommy that I am, "owie mommy" always gets the same response and so she says:

"Kiss it mommy. Kiss it mommy."

I start laughing. "I can't kiss it Annie. You're fine sweetie. OH! Look! Yo Gabba is on!"

I try distraction.

"Kiiiiisssss it mommy."

I kind of panic. I am not thinking clearly enough to do what my mom later told me to do- which is kiss my fingers, and then place them on her owie. Nope. I'm just thinking "how do I explain to her why I can't kiss it." And there I am really trying to explain to her why I cannot kiss her private-part-owie.

My own steadfast teaching, that kissing makes everything better, backfires. In a rage she sits up and puts her hands on my cheeks and screams:

"KISS IT MOOOOOOMMMMMYYYYY. KISS IT. KISS IT. PLEASE."

I've never seen her so mad at me. She starts crying. And there I sit, a blubbering idiot, with fearful eyes, my head between her legs- and her hands grabbing my face- telling her things like, "Nobody is allowed to kiss your private parts. Never!" and "One day this story will be really embarrassing, you'll be really glad I didn't do it" and "I'm so sorry you have an owie, that's the kind of owie that only a diaper can kiss better, let the diaper kiss it!"

What? What in the world is wrong with me?

Mom moment failure.

***

I'm cooking dinner and she is in the living room watching Nick Jr. and playing with her dolls. The little guy on TV tells her to name the things that she sees on the beach and I hear her: Sand. And water. And birdies. And fishies. And apple pet.

Apple pet? I stop stirring. She says it again. Apple pet. What in the world is an apple pet?

I walk in the room and there on the center of the screen is a bright red crab scurrying across the sand. She knows lots of animals but we've never talked about a crab. She sees his bright red body and thinks he's an apple... that has grown legs and a mouth... therefore...

he is an apple pet.

Brilliant little child she is.

Every time we see the crab now I say, "OH! apple pet!"

She looks at me impatiently, "No mommy. It's a crab!"

***

I am strapping her into her car seat last week, when she grabs my face in her hands...

"I think you're CUTE mommy!"

***

During her first thunderstorm last week we are explaining that the big booms and bolts of lightning are supposed to happen during a rain storm. That means the sky is making lots of rain to feed the trees and plants and that's a good thing. That means they are doing a good job.

Well, anytime you do a "good job" at our house, I do a victory dance and then I yell "HOORAY for Annie!!!" Most of our days are spent screaming, dancing, painting, and yelling hooray while simultaneously kissing things. So as the thunder went off, she realized it was doing what it was supposed to do, which meant it was doing a good job.

For the better part of an hour she sat in front of her window watching the lighting and thunder, screaming and dancing with her hands above her head, "Hooray thunder! hooray thunder! Hooooooraaaaayyyy thunder!"

***

As I tucked her into bed late last night I told her, "Sleep well doodle bug! In the morning we will have cinnamon toast and yogurt."

She sits straight up, eyes closed because she is mostly asleep, and pulls her pacifier out of her mouth.

"No! Bacon. And Eggs. And Pancakes. And waffles."

She lays back down and I don't hear a peep from her until this morning at 9:00 a.m.

"I awake mommy. I need cimamamon toast and yogurt mommy."

***

I love being her mom.

***

For more Annie pics using my new iphone app, Camera +, check out my flicker link:

jenny's photos

I wish we all could know...

A few weeks ago I was in Terminal D at DFW airport. Terminal D is the international terminal here in Dallas. It's not flashy- like Detroit Metro- with beautiful fountains, leather lounge chairs, and an indoor tram; but it's not dinky either. It has rather lofty ceilings, fabulous restaurants, and enough flat screens to remind you that, although spread out and enormous (like everything in Texas) it is still modern and trendy. Mostly, terminal D seems to be a hub for wealthy travelers and more business men and women than I ever, ever care to deal with. They are everywhere. All huffy and puffy and rushed and sipping their lattes and making business deals on their laptops while talking on their ear pieces to someone else- all while trying to pay for their lattes. You get the point. It's the business elite and the people hopping on planes to amazing places like Paris and San Paulo and Beijing.

You go to Terminal D to people watch- and then you try to stay out of the people's way!

I tell you all of this to tell you that when the whole of terminal D was frozen in place the other day for what seemed to be fifteen minutes... I thought the worst. Perhaps the airport had lost cell signal or some other terrible, natural catastrophe had occurred.

But then I saw an older gentleman looking up.

There were tears streaming down his face.

And there, above our heads, encased behind a glass wall, coming out of the international arrival doors, hundreds of our men and women returning from Afghanistan began to file through the doors.

The gentleman in front of me drew to attention- you could almost here his 80 year old bones snap into place-  and put his hand to his head in the most beautiful salute I have ever seen.

He stayed like that, at attention, saluting, for 15 minutes.

His wife rose from her wheelchair and steadying herself against him, she began to clap.

Aall the huffy, puffy, busy business folks set their briefcases down and began to clap too. All through terminal D people stopped. Frozen in time. Cheering and clapping. Giving thumbs up and mouthing the words thank you. Wiping tears and not breaking our gaze- we stood there, scattered throughout Terminal D, craining our necks upward, knowing we were a part of a moment that was incredibly significant.

Whether you believe in war or not. Whether you believe in this war or not. You gotta believe in these men, women, and their families.

Some of the men and women in uniform wiped tears from their eyes as we cheered them on. Some of them threw their hands in the air like Rocky- telling us they did it, they made it home. Some of them nodded, and as straight as a soldier who has seen death, walked with purpose down that hall as a man and woman who comes home with honor should. Some smiled. Other men stopped to hug each other and buried their faces in the camouflage of another. One girl started dancing. Their reactions were all different, but all beautiful.

Our airport does an amazing job at welcoming home troops, but it never happens in Terminal D. It happens in another terminal. The USO is set up in a smaller terminal with plenty of room for families to cheer... and no glass walls. So I suppose this group was headed to the other terminal. I suppose the sight of them surprised the Terminal D kind of folks. I suppose people had places to get to and phone calls to make and business deals to secure and... and.. and...

but in that moment, the whole world stood still.  And these men and women stole our hearts. And we gave them ours.

I wish the whole world could have seen it.

We- the collective we- we were so proud of them. So grateful. So humbled.

***

I was deeply touched by the stories of your friends, family, and personal experiences regarding deployment. Thank you to all the blog readers who shared your stories with us. I wish I could repeat them all here. I wish I could tell people your story so that we could ALL have a better grasp on what it truly means to sacrifice.

I wish we could know the feeling a mother has when watching her 20 year old baby boy leave for the foreign desert of Afghanistan.

I wish we could know the feeling of giving birth to a baby while a best friend holds the computer and dad watches on skype from a desert laced with war.

I wish we could know what it feels like to leave our children and husband behind, wondering if they will still be there, if the marriage will still be there, when we return.

I wish we could know the feeling of  keeping it together, day in and day out, taking care of children, bills, family health issues, and the simple chores of getting kids ready for school and holidays, while our spouse has been deployed for the fourth time.

I wish we could all, for just a brief moment, experience these things so that we might not only appreciate the sacrifice, but that we might also be drawn to a place of action on behalf of our military families. Like everything in life, once we see it with our own eyes; once we walk through it with our own family; once we put ourselves in the shoes of another... it is no longer a foreign concept, it is a person, a family, a child, a shared moment that- try as we may- we cannot seem to rid our minds of.

The result?

Once we experience the shoes of another, we move beyond cursory words of sympathy and we move into empathy. A deep feeling of truly sharing and carrying another's burden or pain. Sympathy is the broadest form we can relate to someone who is hurting. Then comes empathy, which allows us to actually put ourselves in the person's shoes. Then comes compassion, a mixture of both sympathy and empathy marked by a propensity to alleviate the suffering of the person who has suffered. Sympathy is easy. Empathy requires "knowing what it feels like" or at least allowing ourselves to imagine what it must feel like. And once we feel it? We- as humans- are more times than not, driven to compassion.

Sympathy. Empathy. Compassion.

So yes. I wish for each of us that we may, in some way, understand the hardships of another so that we might move well beyond sympathy and into empathy and acts of compassion.  This week specifically, I hope to encourage you- whoever you are- to be moved to compassion on behalf of the men, women, and families who sacrificially serve in the military.

***

At the very least, we can pray prayers of peace over those we know who are currently deployed and serving during war time.

But I hope you and I become inspired to do more than just that!  This week I will introduce you to several organizations that you can partner with in big and small ways to show our troops and their families compassion. Be looking for those on Wednesday.

Please print this list out and join me in praying for those who are currently deployed and their families:

Ashley Barnhill

Josh Barnhill

Ashley Miller

Joe Gilling

Tim, wife, son

Treylyn Smith, wife, son Karsyn

Orlando, wife

John, his father and sister Lori

Parker and Ellen

Matt Emmon's brother, wife, two children

Serrell Livingston, wife, son, and step daughter

Robert Tepera

Andrew Baptiste

Thomas Jones

Michael Payne

Chris Davidson

Sarah Bleything

A family that my sister is close with just said goodbye to their husband/daddy as he was sent off to Iraq, again.

A young couple who are moving in two months, and their third baby is due in one month.

A young female soldier who volunteers at my youth group is currently deployed.

Jeanna B and her husband who is currently deployed

Jared, wife, and three children

Colin Kerrigan, wife, and three children

Chris Sikes

Ashley Sanders

Jon-Micheal Cason

Michelle Davis (currently deployed) husband, and two children

Tim Benedict, Melissa, and the little baby in her tummy

Katie's cousin in Afghanistan

64

Warning: this post is tongue-n-cheek. If you have a hard time grasping sacrcasm or you take pleasure in being easily offended or passing judgement, just skip this one.

When I first began blogging, years ago, I desperately wanted comments.  I would write my heart out. My deepest thoughts, embarrasing moments and strange prayers. And then I would wait.

Two, three, four comments would trickle in during the following week and I would wonder in utter frustration, "What do you have to do in your blog to get people to leave a freaking comment???"

Then one day I wrote a post about my families' obsession with pets and the gross misuse of money that is spent on our animals in this country in light of the fact that children around the world starve to death or wait to be adopted and loved half as much as an American dog.

And that's the day I learned how to get people to leave a comment on my blog.

So for those of you who are wondering, "How do I inspire people to leave comments on my blog?"  Let me help you out.

OCCR

1. Talk badly about their pets or the money they spend on their pets. Or about how much money they have. (offend)

2. Endorse a book like Rob Bell's. Admit that you voted for Barack Obama. Or confess that you went to Planned Parenthood for years because it was the only way you could get a papsmear and cancer screening done (record labels do not equal = health insurance). (controversy)

3. Occasionaly throw in cute pictures of your kid. (cuteness)

4. And write about the possibility of baby roaches growing in your gums. (roaches. rodents. rancid milk).

Had I known talking about roach babies would generate 64 comments in one day, I would have developed this fear long, long ago!!!

You people crack me up!!! Thank you for all of your animated comments, shared confessions, and pledged support to the lunacy that can sometimes be found on these pages.

Seriously, if you are striving to generate comments on your blog- take it from a girl who has lots of blurkers (note to blurkers: I still LOVE you, you secret little weasels):

Diss on pets, take the wrong side- or worse- show grace to both sides of a controversy, toss in a cute picture of your kid or someone else's kid, and occasionaly tell a horrible story about a mouse running across your baby or baby roaches growing in your mouth.

My gums are better, thank you for asking.

I have no idea why I:  flossed, had an explosion of blood, and a roach leg then extracated itself from my gumline. I retraced my food. No herbs, popcorn, grapes or other fruits or vegetables with stems. No furthur pain. No furthur bleeding. No clue.  And worst of all... no pictures for proof. Though you should know I tried.

I asked Ryan for a flashlight (Yes, I had to ask. I didn't even know if we owned a flashlight.) and scoured the floor around my sink. I think I threw it to the ground in horror and disgust. But I couldn't find it in the carpet. Then I thought, "Jenny- it's highly unlikely that you threw it to the ground. You collected and saved your own earwax for the first three years of elementary school. You must've put it on a piece of toilet paper and ultimately threw it away without thinking." That seemed more in line with my character and my brilliant, scientific, inquisitive mind. So I got the salad tongs and went through the bathroom trash can to try and find it. And believe me, if it were in there, I would have seen it. It was that big. But nothing. So you'll just have to believe me.

Chip- you got two cute Annie stories coming soon, I promise.

Meggan and Elizabeth- Excellent workplace diversion. I'd love to hear the theories of the co-workers!

John- Your knowledge about what could actually be happening when a small egg embeds itself into the gums made me want to throw up :) Imagine that.

Bloggers who want comments: Be yourself. People will comment eventually. The truth of it is this, your blog becomes a community of people from all over the world sharing tiny moments of life together. And a bunch of tiny moments end up making you like family. Want proof? Annie got birthday presents from people- who I met through this blog- who we now consider family- from six different states. But before your blog becomes a community, it is first and foremost a place to craft your writing, to pour out your stories, and to bare your soul. In regards to that, my manager gave me the greatest advice I've ever recieved when our band signed a record deal five years ago:

Do not listen to people's praise.

Because if you let people's praise build you up, you will let their criticism tear you down.

Pick your safe people. Those people who love you and know you. Their praise and constructive critcism are always welcome.

Other than that- say thank you and learn to let their words fall off of you.

I am forever grateful for Brickell's advice. It has saved me from a puffed up head and a destroyed heart. As you embark on your journey in the "public eye"- whether that's on stage, leading others in the office, or posting your blog for the world to read- pick safe people who will build you up with encouragement and gently re-direct you when you need to hear the words that hurt... and then,  just be grateful for everyone else.

Not influenced by their opinion of you; simply grateful that they are journeying with you.

Retraction...

Ryan came home for lunch. This doesn't usually happen.

"Jen, that was the grossest, most graphic thing I've ever read in my whole life."

I mean, people, I grew up hooked on National Geographic where you saw a zebra lift its leg and pop a baby out and  I often snuck into the computer room and snatched the "dirty" book of the bookshelf. The one from the 70's about the Beauty of Childbirth where they show- in GRAPHIC detail-

childbirth.

I was mutually terrified and enthralled.

To me, some bloody gums and the far-fetched idea that there might be roach babies lining my gums doesn't hold a candle to that business. If the Beauty of Childbirth book were rated "R", then the blog entry was rated "Pg-13."

Still, Ryan assures me I have lost blog readers. One of my guy friends texted to say he officially blacklisted my blog. And that is NOT a good thing. Ryan said he had to "skim" because he was so disgusted. He got an alarmed email from his mother and I have gotten numerous text messages from friends who think I might really have roach baby eggs in my mouth.

I don't.

I promise.

And I am sorry if I grossed you out .

I am suddenly feeling like an ogre.

Like I just walked into the room naked and everyone is starring in horror.

Like I just fell off the stage and everyone is gasping because I have made them terribly uncomfortable.

So I am sorry! I did not mean to be overly graphic and make you sick to your stomach. I will try to refrain or at least give warnings:

Warning: this blog is about the rare possibility that I have roach babies in my mouth and it may be too graphic for people with weak stomachs. However, if you like to poke at dead animals or see what you can find in hamster feces, if you find the idea of watching a surgery or childbirth intensely satisfying to your sick, graphic mind... you will enjoy this blog.

Next time I will warn you. I promise. Or I'll just refrain. But please don't leave me blog readers. Please! Please!

PLEASE LIKE ME ALL OVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!