I don't have a concise essay-like post to write for you. sorry.

There are a few thoughts mulling about in my head. I've felt strongly about various things this last week, and more than once have been moved to tears.


I'll start with my family. I am blessed.
What a blessing. I am blessed.
Do you know what its like to attend a family gathering where you are unable to name all in attendance?
I didn't, not until a cold november in 2004.
Do you know what its like to play cards with someone older and wiser than you, and not feel the need to speak (except to point out "you can't say i've never done anything for you")?
I didn't, not until a cold november in 2004.
Do you know what its like to feel free to confess your deepest hurts, slightest annoyances, and moderate day-to-day issues?
I didn't, not until a cold november in 2004.

Now I've lied. This all didn't happen in November. But this cold month in 2004 was the beginning of something slow, something warm, something invisible, melting me from the inside out. Its been so quiet... i don't even know how it happened. But i find myself these days awake early in the mornings or late at night, thinking about how undeserving i am.
I think about how many children never know love. I think about how many young women grow up alone, fending for themselves. I think about how many people don't know that they are worth respect, admiration, recognition, love. I think about how my life would have looked, how i would have lived, what i would have done without the family i find now all around me.
Why me? i have no answers to that question. Only the one statement: Love works.


One other thought before i try to sleep.
While watching a teaching with dear friends of mine, there was one short moment (it wasn't a crucial moment) where a man was asked to recite John 3:16. He said that he only knew it in his own language and proceeded to recite it. Two tears fell, listening to this man confidently reciting the well-known world-known scripture.
It reminded me of my time in Malaysia, and a little woman who went by the name of Deborah. She insisted that i learn how to say John 3:16 in Mandarin, and i did! it was a mess, and i'm not sure which words meant what, but i knew it and although any mandarin speaker wouldn't understand what i was trying to say, deborah was ecstatic to hear me fumble through the unfamiliar sounds.
Deborah would spend every day working... morning till night. i never saw her without a task at hand. She would arrive early at our drop-in, spread out all of her papers, and begin her daily study. I'm not sure if she had her own bible because she always used one of the facilities bibles. She spent her time translating and teaching herself.
She got me to confess i had received a small education in the french language and insisted i read out loud John 3:16 in french (which she of course had on hand in case she ran into a french speaker). She also (somehow) found out that i had been to Mexico, so naturally i was then required to recite the verse in spanish. Did i mention she recorded me doing this?
Deborah would spend (and perhaps still does) her evenings selling newspapers at a gas station nearby. She never stopped.
On our departure, she presented myself and several of my teammates with a laminated picture of the three of us in a studio (how she got that is another story!), complete with pencil-crayon coloured borders and several translations of John 3:16 carefully printed on either side. She also thoughtfully included on mine a blown-up copy of my pre-school picture which she had much earlier insisted on "borrowing". She, of course, saved a copy of this picture for herself. Why? To show anyone who would take the time to see the people she has met in her lifetime.
She was such an interesting little woman. I can still see her smiling eyes, little grey bun, envelopes and papers, rulers and pencils, and insane walking pace. Anyways, i digress.
My point is that there are people all over this world that are living their quiet unnoticed lives in the presence of the Most Holy Lord... serving him behind the scenes, all over, everywhere. The other side of the world. People are calling on his name, and He Sees Them! He sees Deborah, and even if i had never met her, he would still know her by name, know every small investment she makes in the lives around her. We are all connected, throughout the world, by this love, this relationship with our Creator. Perhaps these points aren't so unrelated after all... family.