To All the Confused, Doubting, Lonely Catholics

My heart is stirring for you tonight. I want to say something to you that you may not have heard in a long time, something maybe you've never heard.

Don't leave. Don't walk away from the Church. We want you. We need you. You are a part of us and we are not fully ourselves without you. 

Don't believe the internet trolls who shout things like, "Well, if you don't believe it or can't agree with Church teaching, stop calling yourself Catholic." I can't pretend to know who they are talking to, because I personally try to keep a very safe distance from religious bullies, but I know they say things like that.

And look, I understand where they're trying to go. If you have decided to proclaim yourself publicly as a Catholic and then openly align yourself with things contradictory to the moral teaching of the Church in a sort of willful public disobedience, then, yes, in all honesty, we'd rather you stop calling yourself Catholic.

But you, you who is just not sure about some things, who is wrestling with how to make Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves fit with moral stances that you know have hurt and distanced people whom you love from feeling worthy of Christ's mercy and salvation? We don't mean you. I don't mean you.

I want you to know that if you are wrestling and struggling and railing at God because He confuses you with His kindness and compassion and demand to be better all at the same time so that you never feel good enough, you are not alone.

If you look at the Church and wonder how it could be that so many Catholics seem to have gone so far off mission of loving people and welcoming them into a relationship with Christ, you are not alone.

If you feel like there is no safe place to say out loud that there are teachings of the Church, that even when you understand their intellectual reasoning, are difficult for you to assent to or proclaim publicly, it's not just you.

If you wonder about the Eucharist and the real of it all and long to understand more, to feel more than you do, but just, don't, that does not make you a bad person, or a bad Catholic.

If you struggle with repeated sin and fall over and over and are tempted to just walk away and find some place where you can rest and they will tell you that you are okay sin and all, we get your weariness. You're not the only sinner here.

If you have watched friends find their way to another church and seen them flourish and grow and find their purpose and be empowered there and you are resentful of that, you are not the first.

But can I ask you a favor? Please don't ditch us just yet. Because the truth is, I know if you walk away, it is not Jesus you are really rejecting, or two thousand years of beautiful tradition and sacramental grace, or the faith of your childhood that was wide-eyed for the wafer that was the Savior. It's us. 

The people next to you in the pews who don't know your name in real life but will happily rake your "type" over the coals publicly and call for your ex-communication. The people who yell and rant and make you feel like a two year old in time out for asking an honest question. The ones who live to use your sin to justify our own.

Can I just offer you my sincerest apology? I don't know how we got here either and I am with you when you think this is surely not the Jesus of the Gospels alive and active. I am not sure how to help you find a safe place for wrestling out the hard stuff, but can I just stand next to you and hope with you that somewhere within our Church there is one? And tell you that I will wait and I will search with you and I will not leave you alone in the dark?

Please don't leave us. We don't need an army of dissenters calling themselves Catholic in the public square. But we also don't need an army of believers who despise honest questions and real seeking and dark places of unbelief and drive out the parts of our own body, the Body of Christ. We need people who walk together. Who stop for the injured and the hurting and rest with them until they are ready to have their wounds bandaged and get back in the race. We need to make sure we remember that you, you stuck in the muck of life that has made you cynical about the Church, you just might be the best part of us if we could stretch ourselves out long enough to invite you to move with us, in communion with us, again.

So stay with us, please? Let us sit with you and wrestle with you and be honest with you about the fact that we too have doubted and wrestled and struggled. That we still do.  Give us a chance to make right our failures to love you where you are and be Christ present to you.

If you feel alone and like there is no way God can love you or you can stay Catholic with the thoughts and the questions you are having, can I just please say to you right here and now that He does and there is.

And can I make you another promise? If you cannot say "yes, I'll stay", if you walk away for reasons that are not mine to know, can I tell you that I won't condemn you, vilify you or stop seeing you as part of the Body of Christ? I will long for you and yearn for you, but I will not ostracize you.

But I can tell you that I will pray and I will hope that you will wrestle your way to the freedom and the joy that was meant to be ours in the sacramental life of the Church, that I will pray that on the other side of your doubt is wild abandonment to grace and a light that cannot be extinguished? That my greatest hope for you is that this place in which you find yourself now is the crossroads that leads you to a love a affair with God and His Church that you cannot help but share with others? Because that is my prayer for all of us, each of every one, those trapped in the dark place and those stuck in obstinate rule measuring and every one of us somewhere in between. Because I firmly believe it is what the Father desires for us as His children and His Church, His brothers and His bride.

And I hope and I pray you will stay and that we can find you a beacon of hope and a safe space and some light in your darkness. That we will be that hope and safety and light for you. Because that is what we were meant to be after all. And I pray you accept my apology for all the times we haven't been it.

Let us pray that the Spirit makes a way for those who long to run together towards him.

Day 17 of Giving That Gives Back: Lovely Links From Friends

So have I ever mentioned that I have been blessed to know and meet some really super cool people? God seems to just know who to bring in to my life to keep me inspired and buoyed with hope that we can use our gifts to shine His light into the world and transform lives.

Back at Idea Camp in September, I spent a very hysterical and enlightening few hours with some amazing women. Today I want to share with you links to some of the causes they are passionate about and some of the things they are doing to change lives.

First, let me introduce you to my friend Britany. She and her family are waiting for God to add a precious person to their family from Ethiopia. If you have followed an adoptive family through the wait for a referral, it can be agonizingly difficult and easily lead to listless despondency. But that is not how Britany and her family are doing this waiting thing. They instead have launched a campaign of love in Ethiopia, to take care of vulnerable children and make sure they are cared for. Just look at these faces. They started out with 155 kids needing sponsorship. But because THEY TOTALLY ROCKED IT, half those kids are now sponsored. But there are still 88 waiting. And 100 more kids they have not yet profiled because this first batch was priority. So if someone would please go get sweet Mimi and then tell me what her letters say when you get them, that would make my world. Or Bethlehem? Because, seriously? That is some Christmas joy right there.

Now, let's talk about another cool chick I know, Lindsey. She is mama to two beautiful kiddos from Ethiopia too. And so part of her heart is in Ethiopia. And she has some pretty awesome talents she's using to bring transformation to families there. Like writing a book about a little boy's search for water in Africa to teach, inspire and engage kids about the global water crisis. I Walk For Water is lovely to look at, fun to read, and every child I've shared it with has enjoyed it and begun thoughtful discussion immediately afterwards. And every book purchased provides clean drinking water for one person in Africa for seven years. Double awesome. Lindsey shared this link today to the Children's HopeChest shop on Story Company. I'll take one of these flower cuffs in every color, please. And the chevron necklace made by deaf artisans in Kenya? Need it for sure. Lindsey also introduced me to LOPA Art which promotes and sell original art by Ethiopian artists and some amazing leather bracelets as well. Poke around their photos. Beautiful.

Are you starting to see why I loved hanging with these ladies? Just wait. There's more.

Erika came along on our taco and guacamole adventure as well. She and a friend just began an amazing project called Somebody's Mama that is linking women up to learn and engage with global women's issues. That tribe recently rallied to provide a mom from our St. Francis Emmaus Center with a year's worth of formula for her baby. It's a great tribe and I highly recommend you jump in! Somebody's Mama is in partnership with 4 H. I. M. Just go check out this video about their poultry project at a school in Togo. Amazing. We are hoping to learn more from them as we develop our Chicken Run project in the future.

And then there was Jen. She's responsible for the partnerships behind the beautiful products that are turning up in the (in)courage marketplace. She led the development of the lovely new tableware line from Dayspring. And she recently went to India to hang out with the team from JOYN India and meet their artists. Because she's awesome like that. I love JOYN's products and was so happy when they were featured in the new TOMS marketplace. Don't you love that TOMS page? You could make a homeschooling day out of following all the graphics there!

So, yeah, it was a pretty cool lunch. Did I mention we got lost, invited ourselves through the back door and traipsed through the kitchen to get there? Yeah. Because awesome is as awesome does. I hope you learn as much from these ladies as I have. And I am so grateful God brought each of you into my life!\

Day 16 of Giving That Gives Back: A Gift For You

 *Edited on January 6, 2014 to link up at the lovely Sarah's place.


I have a little quiet gift for you today. It has been seeping in to the dry corners of my heart. It is the voice of the One I am leaning hard in to these days. It is rich and deep and lyrical and lovely.

Maybe there is someone you want to share it with? Print out verses and frame them for gifts? Add a verse to your Christmas cards of letters. I don't know. Just let it move you toward Him.

The Nativity

“For unto us a child is born.” — Isaiah

The thatch of the roof was as golden,
Though dusty the straw was and old,
The wind was a peal as of trumpets,
Though barren and blowing and cold:
The mother’s hair was a glory,
Though loosened and torn,
For under the eaves in the gloaming –
A child was born.

O, if a man sought a sign in the inmost
That God shaketh broadest his best,
That things fairest are oldest and simplest,
In the first days created and blest:
Far flush all the tufts of the clover,
Thick mellows the corn,
A cloud shapes, a daisy is opened –
A child is born.

With raw mists of the earth-rise about them,
Risen red from the ribs of the earth,
Wild and huddled, the man and the woman,
Bent dumb o’er the earliest birth;
Ere the first roof was hammered above them.
The first skin was worn,
Before code, before creed, before conscience –
A child was born.

What know we of aeons behind us,
Dim dynasties lost long ago,
Huge empires like dreams unremembered,
Dread epics of glory and woe?
This we know, that with blight and with blessing,
With flower and with thorn,
Love was there, and his cry was among them –
“A child is born.”

And to us, though we pore and unravel
Black dogmas that crush us and mar,
Through parched lips pessimistic dare mutter
Hoarse fates of a frost-bitten star;
Though coarse strains and heredities soil it,
Bleak reasoners scorn,
To us too, as of old, to us also –
A child is born.

Though the darkness be noisy with systems,
Dark fancies that fret and disprove;
Still the plumes stir around us, above us,
The tings of the shadow of love.
Still the fountains of life are unbroken,
Their splendour unshorn;
The secret, the symbol, the promise –
A child is born.

Have a myriad children been quickened,
Have a myriad children grown old,
Grown gross and unloved and embittered,
Grown cunning and savage and cold?
God abides in a terrible patience,
Unangered, unworn,
And again for the child that was squandered –
A child is born.

In the time of dead things it is living,
In the moonless grey night is a gleam,
Still the babe that is quickened may conquer,
The life that is new may redeem.
Ho, princes and priests, have you heard it?
Grow pale through your scorn.
Huge dawns sleep before us, stern changes –
A child is born.

More than legions that toss and that trample,
More than choirs that bend Godward and sing,
Than the blast of the lips of the prophet,
Than the sword in the hands of the King,
More strong against Evil than judges
That smite and that scorn,
The greatest, the last, and the sternest –
A child is born.

And the rafters of toil still are gilded
With the dawn of the star of the heart,
And the Wise Men draw near in the twilight,
Who are weary of learning and art,
And the face of the tyrant is darkened,
His spirit is torn,
For a new King is throned of a nation –
A child is born.

And the mother still joys for the whispered
First stir of unspeakable things;
Still feels that high moment unfurling,
Red glories of Gabriel’s wings.
Still the babe of an hour is a master
Whom angels adorn,
Emmanuel, prophet, annointed –
A child is born.

To the rusty barred doors of the hungry,
To the struggle for life and the din,
Still, with brush of bright plumes and with knocking,
The Kingdom of God enters in.
To the daughters of patience that labour
That weep and are worn,
One moment of love and of laughter –
A child is born.

To the last dizzy circles of pleasure,
Of fashion and song-swimming nights,
Comes yet hope’s obscure crucifixion,
The birth fire that quickens and bites,
To the daughters of fame that are idle,
That smile and that scorn,
One moment of darkness and travail –
A child is born.

And till man and his riddle be answered,
While earth shall remain and desire,
While the flesh of a man is as grass is,
The soul of a man as a fire,
While the daybreak shall come with its banner,
The moon with its horn,
It shall rest with us that which is written –
“A child is born.”

And for him that shall dream that the martyr
Is banished, and love but a toy,
That life lives not through pain and surrender,
Living only through self and its joy,
Shall the Lord God erase from the body
The oath he has sworn?
Bend back to thy work, saying only –
“A child is born.”

And Thou that art still in the cradle,
The sun being crown for Thy brow,
Make answer, our flesh, make an answer.
Say whence art Thou come? Who art Thou?
Art Thou come back on earth for our teaching,
To train or to warn?
Hush! How may we know, knowing only –
A child is born?

– c.1893

Our friends the Rees family, who are the band known as L'Angelus have the most lovely shortened version of the poem in song form on their Christmas album. It is by far my favorite Christmas song to listen to when I want to set a quiet meditative tone. You can find it on Amazon here. I highly recommend the rest of the album too. But seriously, get that song. And give it as gift to someone you know needs a hand out of a hard or dark place this Christmas.

P.S. We are still trying to gain some momentum for our quilt raffle featured in the widget there on the sidebar. Someone is going to win a lovely quilt and all the proceeds are going to get our artists the materials they need so we can cover the homeless in mercy this winter. If you want to take chances or make donations in someone else's name, we can help with that. Just let us know.

Follow the wholes series here.

Day 8 of Giving that Gives Back: Meet Mercy Goods

Mercy Goods

Good That Transforms

From early on in our time working as St.Bryce Missions here in Costa Rica, one of the things God began to build a passion and a vision for was job creation, skills training and meaningful work in our area. The area in we live and minister is one of the most rural regions of Costa Rica. It also has one of the lowest rate of family income in the country. For women, access to work outside the domestic arena is limited. If it is available, it is often located an hour or more away in the city. For single moms or moms with young children, it is nearly impossible to work in the city without having to pay for additional child care. And if a woman can't leave home to work for reasons such as being the primary care taker of an elderly or disables relative, her options for finding income for her family are non-existent.

After much prayer, conversation, and research, we began an outreach providing skills training and meaningful work opportunities to women in our area. We are in the process of rebranding and designing our shop right now, but the title above is the name of our social enterprise: Mercy Goods. If you click under my archives tab on "meaningful work", you can follow along much for the process as I brainstormed my way through to getting the enterprise off the ground. 

Our ladies produce hand made quilts and other items from reclaimed clothing that we source locally. We reduce our consumer footprint by turning bags of clothes that were headed to the landfill into usable, sellable craft items. We create a cycle of giving that gives back by first contracting our ladies to make quilts for a current partner that we choose to "cover in mercy". Sponsors donate the price of the quilt and the ladies are then paid to produce them. We at St. Bryce Missions deliver them to the partner. We have to date covered our local orphanage, the first licensed safe house for trafficking victims here in Costa Rica, and the Gleason House for ALS patients in our Mercy Covers quilts.

Tomorrow, we will open  the opportunity to contract our artists to create a waterproof quilt for the homeless this Christmas. Our goal will be to cover the local homeless community in the nearby city of Turrialba in mercy, as well as the community being served by our friends in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. This will mean contracting a total of 70 quilts. I do hope you will come back tomorrow and give this special gift that gives back three-fold: to the recipient of the quilt, to the artist and her family who are employed and empowered by your donation, and to you the donor who does to do good that transforms.

In addition to the quilts. we then give our artists the opportunity to take ownership over the materials and skills we provide them and create other items for sale. While we are waiting for our shop front to be ready, you can view the items available to purchase on our Facebook page. So today, would you stop and take a look around? Perhaps find an item or two you might like? And share this post or the page with your social media connections?

Building this kind of enterprise is way more challenging than I ever expected and much slower going than I thought it would be. Your help and encouragement keeps me and our artists pushing forward through the obstacles seeking to transform lives and families and communities. We truly appreciate that more than you will ever know.

P.S. I had all these great photos to add to this post. But blogger is all, "Hey, Lady, day of rest. Get it?" Bu they are all on our Facebook albums, so that just means you HAVE to head over and click around, right?

All posts in this series can be found linked here.

Day 4 of Giving that Gives Back: How Not to Be the Grinch

One of the things that's hard about tackling this issue on a personal level is others' reaction to it. I do not know a single person who would try to become a more intentional consumer for the sake of making others feel bad about themselves. And yet that seems to be the general reaction.

People feel the need to defend themselves or declare us a saint. It's hard not feel pressured to stop talking about this at this point. No one wants to ruin someone else's merry. I am hardly here to try to make another mom feel badly about herself for sticking a candy-cane shaped tube of Hershey's Kisses in someone's stocking. And yet, judging by the comments in my friend Sarah's post at the NC Register today, it seems that this is exactly what happens when we go there.

Here's the thing, I am convinced it is better to do something rather nothing. I know my efforts will never be perfect and I will likely never get the opportunity to physically rescue someone from slavery. I know my best attempts may fail me and I might find out the ethically sourced chocolate I purchased was mailed in bubble wrapped that spreads cancer to workers in a developing nation. It's just unavoidable.

But here's the thing. If I never try to change my actions based on what I know, nothing will change. Not in me and not in the world. Bianca Olthoff, who is fighting trafficking on the front lines with the A21 campaign said something when I heard her speak recently. She summed up perfectly our purpose here with this short phrase: "Awareness should lead to advocacy should lead to action". We cannot be paralyzed by fear or guilt or being simply overwhelmed. We have to live in the tension that we can try and never get it totally right. But if we are aware there is an injustice as grave as modern day slavery rising to epidemic proportions in our time, we must use our voice to advocate for solving it and we must take what action is available to us. Tweaking Christmas is one way we can start.

But we can also find ways to do it without being the Grinch to those around us who would feel indicted by our action. One way is invite them to make merry with you in this. My friend Audrey hosted "A Different Kind of Christmas Party" this weekend.

Nickie's table representing St. Bryce Missions at
Audrey's "Different Kind of Christmas Party"

She invited friends to represent causes they were passionate about with tables set up in her living room. Then her guests made merry with holiday cheer and goodies while they had a chance to get to know the opportunities to give a different kind of gift this Christmas. She had children to sponsor in Ethiopia and items made by social enterprise initiatives. And my dear friend Nickie invited guests to purchase chickens for our St. Bryce Missions Chicken Run Project which provides chickens to families with undernourished children in our area.

A festive little chicken gift bag to bring her gifts home on

She made it lovely and fun and festive for the guests. Just look at those photos! They even took home little gift bags with gift cards in them to give to whomever they had purchased the chicken in honor of.  After the party, Audrey sent all her guests links to the groups that were represented at the party.

Rather than try hard to make changes and end up feeling like the Grinch this Christmas, why not find a way to creatively celebrate your efforts at change? And look, don't freak out about how your baked goods are contributing to slavery while you have a party to help stop it. Just relax. Breathe a little.

Find some friends around you who are passionate about a certain organization or group, invite them to advocate for that group. Don't know anyone to ask? Do a virtual one. Invite your guests to bring their favorite gadgets and introduce them to the links we are sharing here or your personal favorites. Bookmark and pin in holiday style. Encourage them to think not only about products to purchase, but encourage them to choose a non-consumer option or a charity gift for at least three of their gifts this Christmas. Give them permission for it to be yours. Have festive round up friends. Play some Christmas tunes. And change the world without anyone having to feel badly about herself. We have to start somewhere. Why not with a party?

Don't forget that you can find all the posts in this series linked in the original post.

Why I Am Asking IF

Back in September at Idea Camp, I had the pleasure of hearing Jennie Allen  speak. And let me tell you something, I was all on board to sign up for whatever it was she was about afterwards. Her passion, her heart for Jesus, her honesty about being a woman and loving other women was a language I speak it deep in my heart. It is a language that has been beating its rhythm loud in my head since my friend Ann began calling us the #esthergeneration from the red clay of Uganda. Its song is being sung in my development of our social enterprise initiative and our St. Francis Emmaus Center.

So when I learned about Jennie's IF:Gathering, I got excited. If you know me, you won't be surprised that I leaped right in without looking at how deep the water was. I told you about the common ground established with people at Idea Camp. IF was an opportunity to really see that concept bloom, and I was all in.

When Jennie announced her bigger vision for IF and all the  ladies I like to read a whole lot started sharing pictures of those twinkle lights and that pretty white table, and I knew I could be a part of it from my little mountain top in faraway Costa Rica, I was doubly excited. But sad that I would be alone. So I boldly shouted that anyone who wanted to could come join me here for IF: Missions. I realize now that it is really easy to be all brave like the other girls when your proposal seems unlikely.

But then they said "yes". Ladies from varied backgrounds and different denominations said they would actually like to ask IF with me in this space and see where God led us. And then, as I tend to do when I jump into something with all my heart, I panicked a little. Not about having company. But asking myself if this was what God was doing, or what I wanted.

And so I did what I do when I am panicking about God. I prayed. I sat with Him. I searched my heart and I searched His Word. And He led me to the answer of why my heart simply must ask IF. That answer is three-fold.

1. My Morning Offering makes me an offer. For as long as I can remember I have prayed a Morning Offering that begs for the "unity of all Christians". But I have not every often asked myself what my responsibility was to what I was praying for. If we are honestly praying for unity, it seems to me that we need to be actively working toward unity, no? And how do we find unity if we never meet? Never sit at the same table and see one another for who we are. If there is no relationship, how can there be unity?

I want that unity. I want to be able to sit with sisters in Christ outside the lines and the boxes that have been drawn for us and see anew what unity could mean. I want to sit at a table that is about conversation not conversion to one way of thinking. I want grasp what is good and lovely and noble in the sisterhood of Christ and shake it up like a bottle full of dormant sparkles and watch it mix and float and become something breathtakingly beautiful. Because I believe in a God that unites. And I believe He does it in ways that are not systematic but surprising, in ways that are much less about what we bring to the table and much more about what He has to serve us, in ways that challenge the deepest parts of us and yet lavish us with love and generous grace. Because His purposes, His heart, His love are already triumphant. If we can just let Him win, the world will change. Hearts will heal. Stereotypes will crumble. Timid voices will find their vibrato and sing. And oh, how I would love to sing in the chorus of united sister love, in the #estergeneration's choir.

2.  Acts 2 asks for all. "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them." That is what His Word says.

I believe that if ALL the disciples were in one place the day the Holy Spirit set them on fire and the church was born, that there were women there too. And the flames dances on their heads and their mouths opened and they were ALL IN ONE ROOM and they left from there and set the world on fire. Acts does not tell us their stories. And rightfully so. It is named Acts of the Apostles for a reason. It has a purpose and it has its story to tell. 

But who is telling ours? Because there is a story left to be told, the story that we are writing, the distant daughters of the women with flames dancing over their heads and the fire alight in their hearts and their tongues loosed with the power of God and the whole world waiting to hear what they have to say. And I want to be one who tells that story because I know in my deepest being that it is full of the glory of God and the kingdom come and heaven's hope. 

And I think it has start right there where it did in Acts 2. "They were ALL together in one place." In the days before division and denominations built walls between us, the Spirit came in full force when they were all together in one room. And the world was a changed place because of it. And I know from my own life that the Word of God is extensively repetitive. We go back and do what He did and what they that named themselves His name did, Christians, and the Word is alive again and our God lives and the flames dance and the fire falls and the world changes. And I want to be there waiting.

3. Romans 8 yokes me with an obligation.  If we are the distant daughters of they whom the Spirit descended upon and we claim life in Christ, then we live governed by the Spirit. My favorite book of the Bible then says in verse 6 that "The mind governed by the flesh is death,but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace". A mind governed by the flesh is death. Sin, division and fear have their origins in death. Life, peace, love, and unity are the thoughts of the mind governed by the Spirit. And so in verse 12 Romans tell us that we have an obligation: an obligation to live according ot the Spirit. To live life and peace and good and hope and unity and fire dancing, life changing risks. 

And Romans ends its brilliant treatise of life in the Spirit with this: "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God...Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." 

And for this we will gather. We will suffer through the unknown and the strangeness and the things that divide God's children with our Jesus. We wonder why about one another and find things hard to swallow in our differences. We will feel the brokenness in the Body of Christ and wish there were away out of it. Because we know that there, in that place, his glory will shine. 

And wherever the glory of God is, I want to be. And I want to lift my hands and hear the wind of the Spirit rise and watch the flames dance in eyes of my sisters and speak the words of life in their foreign tongues so that they will hear. And I want them to do the same for me. 

So, me, I am asking IF. But I think God is already giving me a glimpse of the answer. 

A Letter to Emma (and Her Mama)

Dearest Emma,

Your mama, she saw Ann  hugging Katie today, and she got scared again. Scared of you, dear. Do you know why she's scared of you? She's scared because she sees a girl so ready to let God wreck the young life she's living and by default, wreck her mama's. She sees a girl with a fire in her heart and the flames dancing in her eyes, big dreams, big hopes of faraway places and blessed feet bringing the Good News. And she wonders how to help you live where you are now, how to pour everything into you she wants you to have, how to connect you to home enough that you'll always long for it. So that when the time comes for you to run away with Jesus and wreck your life, and by consequence hers, you'll know who you are and where you come from. And you'll take it all with you and come back to it all when you need it.

And this is what I want to say you, darling. Let her. Let her your mama love you and teach you and lead you and guide you. Do the dishes when she asks. Camp out in the backyard with your brothers and laugh at their goofy jokes. Go on dates with your Dad. Share confidences with your sister. Plant a vegetable garden for you mom. Serve the poor in your own neighborhood until you know them by name. Do algebra and geometry problems with vigor. Read about history. Learn the lives of the saints and some solid theology. Make the waiting worth the while.

Because in all these things, the real lesson is this: Submit. Be obedient. Be faithful. And find joy in the ordinary. And do you know what, beloved girl? You're going to need to those lessons. If there is anything I wish, it is that I had allowed myself to learn them better than I did. We, the girls with the fiery spirits and drifting dreams and the wide eyes full of distant shores, we sometimes lose the forest for the trees. We sometimes forget that if we save the whole world and lose ourselves, it is all for naught. We drop the ball on our own sanctity in pursuit of the will of God. We worry so much about God's plan for our lives we forget to live it, to enjoy it. We strive so much for the extraordinary that we lose the grace of the ordinary. We forget that we serve a God who makes himself present to us in simple bread and wine. The greatest miracle in the most ordinary of things. And that we must live equally. We are hounded by the feeling of "not enough".

But, sweet Emma, whether God calls you to the married life, the religious life or the single life, living it will be all about those three lessons: submission, obedience and faithfulness. You will always be stuffing down the desire to do what you feel like doing in order to do His will. You will always be fighting the desire to rebuff wise counsel you know is right for the doing in the now. You will always be tempted to look for more, to want to be somewhere further doing something bigger, than to love what and who there is to love where you are in the moment. And the only thing that will keep you where you need to be is the daily discipline you have practiced over and over and over again of obeying the will of another.

Because you know what I want you to know, Emma? The mission field is more often like the drudgery of daily life at home than not. Only on steroids, Emma. The bathrooms stink more and more quickly. The dishes get dirtier and there is no dish washer. The clothes have to be washed earlier and put on the line and brought back in before it rains and if you forget to pay attention, you have to start all over again. And if you do that twice in a row, you find yourself at Mass in someone else's fuschia velveteen sweat pants and your husband's polo shirt. Ask me how I know, Em. Ask me.

You know what, sweet girl? Most days saving the world is a lot more like solving an endless string of algebra problems that it is like being Wonder Woman. Most days it looks a lot more like sore feet and itchy legs and toilet paper than needs to burned and someone at the door right when you were about to take a shower. And you have to have practiced a lot to know the order to put things in. To know whether to add inside the parentheses of your home first or multiply your giving first. To know whether to subtract time from chores or prayer before you divide yourself to serve. Know how many chapters to read and how many chapters to write and how many chapters to live in one day before you implode into emotional mush. You have to see the comprehension questions in the Word of God and know how to answer them, for the love. And you have to know when life demands a comma, a period, an exclamation mark or a question mark. You can't just live in all caps and never take a break.

And, Emma, your mama, she knows a thing or two about that. And she wants to teach you. Let her, sweet one. And don't regret a moment of it. Soak it all up. Because if God is doing in you what we all think He might be doing, one day you might be far away and full of the the world's pain and the love of Christ to the point of bursting, and you will want nothing more than a warm bath to soak it all out and someone to talk to. All you'll use the newest to gadget to send an S.O.S. to the world out there for a little love, a little encouragement to keep going and you'll hope and hope that your mentors and your friends will show up to cheer you on. And they won't, Emma, they won't. And your eyes will sting with the tears of loneliness and your whole body will hurt from the desire to just be held. And you'll have practiced. You'll have done your homework.

So you'll run to Jesus and you'll read His word and you'll sing His praise and you'll see Him in the simple bread and wine. And your faithfulness will be what gets you to other side. And your obedience will be what keeps you in the place He has you when you want to run. And your submission will be what lets you sit in that place and wait until He moves you rather than going your own way and screwing it all up.

And then, your little gadget will light up with a ray of encouragement to cheer you on. Someone will reach across the miles to be the balm your lonely heart needs. And do you know, what, Emma? 9 times out 10, it'll be your mama.

See this girl right here in this video? She is me at my core. She is who I always dreamed I would be. I'm forty, Em. Do you know how many of my days have actually looked like this? Only a fraction, my friend, only a fraction. But do you know what? Every time I get to live one, it makes the dishes and the mopping and the walking dusty roads and getting blank stares in return and the pain of loneliness and the suffering and the struggling so worth it. Do you know why? Because those things make me look like more like Jesus and less like me. They force me to give me up until He can shine through. And how awful would it be if I finally got to a day like this and brought them me instead of Jesus? I've done it enough to to know, Emma. It sucks. The pain of repentance is so much harder to bear than the waiting and the learning. Ask me how I know, Em. Ask me how I know.




Oh, and Emma, one more thing. Get ready, girl. Because after all that waiting, when He does finally move? Girl, it's like you don't what the heck hit you. You're all, "Wait, wait, wait a minute, Lord. I just need to get a few things together and catch my breath. I didn't finish Algebra yet!" And He's all, "Oh no, honey, we're going. Now." And all I can say is, hold on for the ride, Emma. Cling tight. Because it will be wilder and more glorious than you have ever imagined. And it will good, Emma. So, so good. And I hope I am  there to see it.

And, Em, if you're reading, will you let me make letters to Emma a regular part of my writing? I like talking to you. You help me think. You help get my thoughts together and get them out of my head where they're driving me crazy. And you know, Emma, I've got enough crazy to last me a lifetime.

With the greatest of Love, the peace that surpasses understanding and the highest Hope of all,
Mrs. Mitchell
aka

Let's Thank the Guys Doing the Hard Stuff

A couple of weekends ago, a surprise meeting at the immigration office landed me in downtown San Jose with my husband for the evening. We stayed in a lovely old hotel and enjoyed a stroll through the downtown shopping area that afternoon. As evening set in, we strolled past an infamous "hotel/casino" in the heart of downtown that is widely known to be a front for a prostitution ring. You can find it listed in just about any tourist guide to Costa Rica and an image search of its name will give you an eyeful of what's really being marketed there. It is also widely known that most of the women (girls?) working the place are not Costa Rican. They are Columbian, Nicaraguan and who knows what else. Which of course led me to wonder how many of them got here by being trafficked here. And how many of them were under-aged and stolen and trapped.

For a quick moment, I wanted to tell my husband to march in there and have a look around, to scope it out and see if there were any girls who looked too young, who looked afraid, who looked like they had been hit or hurt, who looked like they were there against their will. I wanted to tell him to ask to see their boss. To ask if they were any girls for sale. To ask specifically for foreign girls and see what he said.
About a minute later, I realized, of course, that this was not an option.

We are not equipped for this, us two foreign missionaries. We proclaim the Gospel to an indigenous people. We build chapels in poor areas. We are working to provide meaningful work to women. We have committed ourselves to taking whatever action we can to fight modern slavery. I am humbled and feel a great privilege to be called to this work. God gave us the perfect job for who we are, what we know and  what we feel called to do.

We are not undercover investigators. We do not have the collective experience, the collaborative cooperation, the expensive equipment or the strong sense of purpose that sends us into the world's darkest corners to find, gain the trust of, record the stories of modern day slaves, then coordinate their rescue, the prosecution of their captors and the beginning of their journey to recovery.

But The Exodus Road does. They've got all that. And they're using to set captives free. 

And right now they're inviting those of us who care passionately about the fight to end slavery to offer our support and encouragement to the men on the front lines -- the men who strap themselves up with undercover surveillance equipment and spend their nights in brothels in Southeast Asia collecting the information they need to rescue the underage victims of sexual slavery. That's a hard job description to carry around day in and day out. I am certain there are days they'd rather not do it. I am certain there are nights it feels hopeless. And I am certain they often feel all alone in those dark places full of scum bags thinking not rescue but ruin.

Would you take a moment to write them and express your gratitude some time between now and January 10th. Hand-written notes would be greatly appreciated. They can be mailed to The Exodus Road |  PO Box 7591 |  Woodland Park, Colorado, 80863. 
If you are unable to get a hand-written note in the mail, you can submit a letter online here. 
Could it be any easier than that? For those of us who want with all our hearts to fight this atrocity but have been called to the front lines of a different kind of work, what better way could there be to offer our hope, our support, our encouragement to the guys doing the hard stuff for us. 
I'm taking away your excuse that you don't know what you to say too. Here's Laura's letter. She and her husband Matt founded this work. They lived it on the ground for two years. The lady knows what she's talking it. Let her teach you. And I am pasting mine below too. So there. No excuses. 
Make a little room in your inn this Christmas and shine a little warmth into a dark world. Because really, what better way is there to honor the light of heaven dawning on earth?
So go do it. Do what you can. Don't wait. Night will come quickly in Southeast Asia and these guys will hit the streets once again. Let them know they are not alone in the dark.

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Dear Investigator,
I just wanted to take the time to tell you thank you for the work you do. I am a wife, mother and foreign missionary with a passion for the cause of ending human slavery and sexual exploitation. I want so badly to run right into all those places, wrap those little girls up in my arms and take them home. But that's not how it works, is it. You know that way better than I do.
The more I learn about what it takes to go nightly into the darkness of the world of human slavery, find and gain the trust of its victims, coordinate their rescue, prosecute their offenders, and put them on the road to recovery, the more I am humbled and grateful for your commitment, your sacrifice, your heroic passion.
I know there must be nights when you don't want to leave the comfort of your home and hang out with scum in dank corners of this broken world. I know there must be moments when you want to scrap the process and just punch someone square in the face, or grab a little girl up in your arms and just run. Yet you don't. You stay the course knowing what real rescue means. You do it night after night, fighting the discouragement and the hopelessness that hangs over these places for the ray of hope that is one person freed from captivity.
For this, I personally am so very grateful. I want to be part of the solution to human trafficking. I want to face the darkness of that reality and shine hope. I want to love enough not turn away from ugly situations. Often it seems that from where I am, there is little I can do. But I hope by letting you know that your work and your sacrifice are deeply appreciated by those of us who do not fight on the front lines, you will feel a little less like no one notices what you are doing,  a little less alone in the darkness, and a little more like you are a part of an army. Your back up might be far away, but we will not leave you alone. And we will not forget you. I will offer a prayer for your safety and the success of your work each night as the darkness creeps over my part of the world and hope it makes its way to you to be a small beacon of encouragement. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for being the one who does the hard thing.
Colleen Mitchell