Help Adopt...

This necklace is adorable right? 

And this t-shirt rocks right?

 

Help my sweet friend adopt by checking out this Etsy shop, and purchasing an amazing Christmas/birthday/rainy day gift for a friend, or for yourself.

This is Bryce...

He is very well fed. He doesn't know it though, he has no idea that he is warm and fat because of Babies-R-Us snugglers and expensive formula. His only job right now is to breath, eat and gas it up. What a life. 

In the small moments that I do not think about my career, my commitments, my bills, my loans, my loathsome future...I am content to stare at Bryce. To kiss his little wrinkles. To smell his fuzzy head. 

With Bryce beginning, he has reminded me of my own life. The good version. The one where I get to eat dinner with my Dad while he asks me genuine questions, the one where I talk to my fifteen year old sister and watch her develop opinions and become a little woman. The one where I have to humbly admit I have nothing figured out, but am being asked by Boet's (God) still small voice to "be here". 

________________________

I am tempted often to scream at God, I plead with him to fix my Dad's body, to give my brothers babies insurance, to have someone tell me what to do with myself. Then I think, maybe I should just marry the next guy who comes along (1950's style) so I don't have to worry about all this uncertainty. And then I laugh a little, because I know this is not how it works.
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Well I am here Boet, now what? 

The face of God.

I am no theologian. I argue a lot, and I ask a lot of questions, but that does not assure I have any solid truth to offer.

Something I have been challenged with lately is the statement "to know God." In high school, I spit this phrase all over the place, working it into evangelizing conversations I would have with friends. I said it so much that I actually believed I knew the creator of mankind, earth and sky on a personal intimate level. "I know God as my personal Lord and Savior" is so frequently used that is has begun to sound like a recorded greeting.

"Hello, thank you for calling Apple Glass, this is Krisi, how can I help you?" (Sing-song voice)

"Hello, I know God as my personal Lord and Savior, this is Krisi, how can I save you?"

Do I really know God, have I seen his face? When I become desperate and bitter, I am reminded of Jesus' words in Matthew 25:
   I was hungry and you fed me, 
   I was thirsty and you gave me a drink, 
   I was homeless and you gave me a room, 
   I was shivering and you gave me clothes, 
   I was sick and you stopped to visit, 
   I was in prison and you came to me.
Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'


Studying the scriptures might tell me how to know, breathe and taste God,
but to see Him, to taste Him, to breathe Him, to know Him I must cast aside my selfishness and comfort...

I want to see the face of God? I need to reach out and cup the face of the thirsty, the hungry, the homeless, the naked, the lonely, the imprisoned.

My ipod jack has died.

So now I depend on scratched CD's and terrible radio to provide noise for my car. I heard the song titled "A Thousand Years" by Christina Perri, and even though I know it's supposed to be for a boy from a girl, in a moment of simplicity and half sanity, the lyrics to this pop song became a whisper of God's promise to me. God had things to say to me, and he used a pop song...this is new. 

(This is me:)
Heartbeats fast
Colors and promises
How to be brave
How can I love when I’m afraid to fall
But watching you stand alone
All of my doubt suddenly goes away somehow
One step closer

(And Christ responds:)
I have died everyday waiting for you
Darling don’t be afraid I have loved you
For a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

Time stands still
Beauty in all she is
I will be brave
I will not let anything take away
What’s standing in front of me
Every breath
Every hour has come to this
One step closer

And all along I believed that I would find you
Time has brought your heart to me
I have loved you for a thousand years
I’ll love you for a thousand more

The Question:

We want to know: What does your heart beat for?
It started the summer of 2006 on a city bus in Sofia, Bulgaria; I was eighteen and wide eyed as my team loudly observed the passing skyline each day on our way to a park clean-up project. On the last morning of our trip, a slender woman shuffled onto the bus and plopped down into the seat adjacent to me. For the sake of clarity, let's call her Ruth.

Ruth could have been fifteen, but the heavy eyeliner and stilettos gave her the air of a twenty-something club hopper. Unfortunately, her sexy outfit was not a style statement...but a uniform. Ruth was my first exposure to a real life prostitute; her hair was the color of flax seed and her eyes seemed distant and pensive. She hugged the steel wall of the metro bus and was given a wide birth by the much more virtuous commuters.

I want to tell her story. I want her to know she is not forgotten, that women around the world suffer from abuse and exploitation. I want to give Ruth a voice.

There have been many other times in my life that I felt a great passion beating in me, it has a rhythmic cry of "no more tears." When I see a hungry homeless man with a toothy grin, of a teen who has no healthcare. I want to help tell their stories; when I am filming, editing and writing I can feel this passion coming alive. I am a complete amateur in my field, but have a hunger to learn and develop at a film maker.

I want to be a story teller.

http://www.discoverthejourney.org