Category Archives: Family Focus

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A Journey into Compassion

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This week, I took my children to India, Uganda, and Bolivia. We only visited each country for 30 minutes each, but we were impacted in a powerful way through the lives and conditions that we encountered.

How is this possible? The Compassion Experience, run by Compassion International, offers the opportunity to witness poverty firsthand without ever leaving the country.

“Change the Story” as an “interactive, immersive display allows you to step into the life of a child who has suffered under the crippling weight of poverty.” Thank God, it doesn’t end there.

In each thirty minute journey with a child, we had the chance to hear their stories – how they moved from deep poverty, fear, and pain to a place of provision, care, and love.

Stories of Great Impact

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As we followed each child’s journey, we were taken into rooms designed to look as similar to their real homes as possible, with authentic pieces of furniture, decorations, and memories. We saw how one child’s family huddled together at night in a room that is 1/4 the size of my kitchen.

They had no beds. No carpet. Only a dirt floor and two chairs – one chair they took turns sleeping in each night and the other they used to prop against the door to keep drunken and drug-induced men from breaking in.

A young boy – the same age as one of my daughters – shined shoes at the market all day just to make enough money to have one meal per day. Alas, often the money he did make was stolen by others. This meant that many days, he didn’t eat at all.

But then something happened to change his circumstances.

Or rather, someone did.

A couple from the United States decided to sponsor this child through Compassion International and he was able to find a place of peace and provision – and most importantly, to learn about the love that Jesus has for him and for all children.

He experienced what it was to be truly loved – through the director of the Center and his sponsors in the States, who wrote him letters regularly in addition to supplying him with monthly support.

He began to believe that he could have a better life and has gone on to walk out of a life of poverty and into the great plan of God’s provision for him. He is just one story of thousands that need to be told.

Why You Should Sponsor an Orphan

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Throughout the last several years, we have sponsored orphans in the countries of Sudan, India, and the Philippines. We placed their pictures on our refrigerator to remind us to pray for them.

While supplying what they need for food and education, I wish we would have written those children more letters to tell them that God loves them. That He has a plan for their lives. That they can overcome great challenges and odds and make a difference in this world.

For any children that we sponsor in the future, this is what I will do differently.

There are many different organizations that have sponsorship programs for children. We personally have sponsored children through Love-n-Care Ministries in India and Harvesters Reaching the Nations in Sudan, to name a few.

Today I will highlight Compassion International since they are the ones who sponsor the Compassion Experience we walked through this week.

For only $38/month, you can sponsor one of 100,000 children from all over the world who are waiting for a sponsor through this organization.

$38 a month in our area is less than the cost of a dinner out for two adults, but this small amount of money can change a child’s life forever.

To Whom Much is Given, Much is Required

You may have heard this line several times, I know. “For only $X/month, you can make a difference in a child’s life.” But after walking through the Compassion Experience this week, I am reminded that this is not just a sales pitch. This is the TRUTH.

And there are thousands of lives waiting –

waiting to be “pulled out of the ash heap” and into a place of safety and provision.

waiting to have the love of Christ demonstrated to them in a tangible way.

waiting to believe that someone could love them.

waiting to be told and shown that they are children of God -children of great worth.

Each thirty minute story in our journey through the Compassion Experience ended with the same scripture: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).

I know I have been given much and therefore much will be required of me. What will I do with what is in my hand to give? What will you do with what is in yours?

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The Purpose of Anger

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I have a confession to make: I never knew my own capacity for anger until I had children. Now don’t get me wrong – I know that we adults can be pretty difficult, too. But we have just learned (usually) that it isn’t socially acceptable to throw a temper tantrum when we don’t get our way or cry for an entire hour when we drop our ice cream cone on the floor.

Living with anyone will bring its challenges and living with lots of little people brings a myriad of relational issues and conflicts that are often accompanied by a strong emotion called anger.

I’ve learned as the primary caregiver for little people that my often even-keel personality can begin to simmer on a level of low-grade irritability that impacts everyone around me – especially my children.

When Anger Steals Our Joy

One night while I was lying in bed, ready to fall asleep, I thought to myself “This is not okay. I don’t want to be so easily irritated!”

I realized that when I harbored anger in my heart, my joy was being stolen and anger was keeping me from enjoying and fully embracing these precious little ones that God has entrusted to me to shepherd towards His heart.

I also recognized that while I cannot change myself, I need not feel helpless. God would never ask us to “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice” (Ephesians 4:31) if it were not possible through the power of His Spirit working within us.

One of my closest friends who also has small children suggested that we read a book together called “Good and Angry: Exchanging Frustration for Character in You and Your Kids.”

Um, yes please! I was won over by the title alone.

The Greater Purpose of Anger

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A great truth that I have learned while reading this book is quite simple: Anger is a flag to us that something is wrong and we need to do something about it. Anger doesn’t tell us what is wrong; we have to take time to identify the real issue behind our anger before we can do anything about it.

While anger is a good and useful emotion to identify when something is wrong, it is not helpful for solving problems. This is biblical: “Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God“ James 1:19-20.

I am learning that when I find myself irritated and smoldering within, I need to pause and ask myself some basic questions:

What is the real problem? Am I angry about something that is being internally stimulated (perhaps my own inward struggle with something) or outwardly stimulated (by one child hitting another or traffic when I am already late).

What is an appropriate response to the issue at hand? Speaking in a loud and harsh tone to my kids does not solve the problem of my children running and wrestling in the kitchen while I am trying to cook dinner. It only compounds the issue.

Perhaps an appropriate response would be to calmly explain that it is not safe for them to run in close proximity to a hot stove and give them clear direction as to where they can safely play, laying out straightforward consequences if there is a failure to comply.

5 Main Reasons for Our Anger

Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller, the authors of “Good and Angry,” identify 5 main causes of anger: Physical Pain, Blocked Goals, Violated Rights, Unfairness, Unmet Expectations.

Taking a few minutes to identify which of these is most often the cause of our anger can be the first step to identifying a healthy way to respond.

Do you often find yourself irritated or angry but are unsure how you can see change? God does not condemn you but offers you a way out through His grace and the power of His Holy Spirit.

He’s given us emotions as gifts that can bring glory to Him when they are used appropriately.

When and in what circumstances do you most often find yourself becoming angry? What are your triggers? What might be an appropriate response for those situations?

Here’s the bottom line: Anger can serve as a friend rather than an enemy when we allow it to signal a problem rather than solve it.

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Christ’s Resurrection Through A Child’s Eyes

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We cracked open the book, ready for our daily reading of Scripture and devotional time together. My girls got excited when they saw the picture of an angel standing beside an open tomb. “Mama, we get to read about how Jesus was raised from the dead today!!” You would think they won the “devotional lottery,” and it’s true.

The Life, Passion, and Resurrection of Christ is the greatest story ever told.

We walked through the account in the book of Luke slowly, deliberately imagining each moment of that miraculous and glorious morning.

I felt the dew in the early morning air and the deep love mixed with sorrow in the hearts of the two women as they approached Christ’s tomb.

My girls questions began immediately: “I wonder what the guards did when they saw the angel?!” one of my daughters asked excitedly. “I wonder if the angel was Gabriel – or another angel?” “I wonder what the angel looked like! He scared the guards!”

Seeing a Familiar Story with New Eyes

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I’ve read the story of Christ’s resurrection hundreds of times. Like many familiar passages in Scripture, it can, unfortunately, be easy to read a story like Jesus miraculously feeding 5,000 people and then go take out the trash and forget all about it. I’m just being an honest adult here.

But these stories are not just stories. They are accounts of what God did when He came to earth. And my daughters eager imaginations at work beckoned me to look at this account of Christ’s resurrection with new eyes again.

“Isn’t it cool that the first people to see Him raised from the dead were women?!” I chimed in with joy. “Yeah,” they answered in affirmation. “What would I do if I were Mary and I saw Him?,” Chesed asked.

We then read about how he appeared to several disciples as they were gathered together. “How did they know it was Him?,” I asked my girls. “The holes from the nails on his hands and feet,” Grace said. “And the place where the sword cut him in the side,” Chesed said as she touched her own side thoughtfully.

We talked about the wounds of Christ that day. We talked about Heaven, too, and how Jesus would be the only one in Heaven who still bore wounds of any kind.

I shared stories of how both my husband and I were injured in various ways as children that left scars on various parts of our bodies. I said, “Mommy and Daddy’s scars will be gone when we go to Heaven, but Jesus will always be able to show us His hands, feet, and side.”

The girls wanted to know if the tomb really looked like the picture in our story. I said, “Well, do you want to see a picture of the tomb they believe He was in?” Um, of course they did. I pulled up a picture of the Garden Tomb in Jerusalem, which I have stood in myself. They begged me to go there to see it themselves with their own eyes. “Someday,” I said, eyes twinkling.

Don’t Just Read the Story – Revel in It!

That day, my daughters and I didn’t just read a story. We reveled in a real-life account that became alive to each of us in a new way.

Because of my children’s eyes – fresh and new – I read that account like it was the first time I had ever heard it.

And I sat amazed in jaw-dropping wonder once again about the God who not only would send His Son to die for my sins but also has complete authority and power over death – indeed, He holds the keys to death, hell, and the grave.

This Holy Week, let’s read this amazing story with new eyes. Let’s revel in the miraculous.

Let’s let our eyes squint from the brightness of the angel.

Let’s allow our hearts to rise into our throats like the women who raced back to tell the rest of the disciples just whom they had seen that morning.

Let’s stand in wonder once again at an empty tomb – and all that it means for our lives today.

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