It's Not Okay

So we are home from the conference now. It went pretty much like I thought it would. I learned a lot and met a lot of fantastic people.

After the first night of the conference, I had a very intense and disturbing dream. Apparently my heart had been very deeply effected by the gathering of all these sweet children who did not ask to be born with this gene mutation, but choose to live life to fullest anyway. It was so lovely to see these children in this safe, protective environment of the conference filled with loving families and caring doctors; yet my dream was a reminder of the cruel way the world chews up it's most vulnerable citizens.

It seems my heart is breaking every which way I turn these days.

My sister-in-law and her family came for a visit this past week. We were able to spend some precious time together and got to visit some of the trendy, fun spots in our area. While standing in The Chocolate Kitchen, I was amazed at my ability to at once appreciate the artistic quality of these beautiful chocolate creations and be sickened by the reality that while I can take the time to marvel at these intricate delicacies, there are mothers in Somalia getting their arm width measured to see if they qualify for nutritional rations.

I know this can seem depressing. However, I am not suggesting we all sit around and feel guilty about all that we have while others starve. I am suggesting that we share what we have been given with others. We can do something about the suffering of others. Sometimes we think that if we get too near the suffering of others, we will be too depressed and feel guilty all the time. This is not true! In fact, when we spend ourselves on the behalf of others, we will feel better than we ever have!

Listen to these words from Isaiah 58:10

"and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness and become like the noonday."

There are so many ways we can help the hungry and the oppressed. Here are a few:

Feed My Starving Children

World Vision

Samaritan's Purse

I am going to leave you with a few photos. Not to induce guilt, but to motivate you to pray, and then give.