Joy

Pre-Cursor: Thank you. You have listened to me describe some of the most intimate details of my calling at the Ministry center and have prayed for me, offered me encouragement, a listening ear, or even let me cry on your shoulder. God is indeed my strength, but you all have helped more than you know.

Do you have joy? 

I know that is one heck of a question to kick this party off with, but lets do it anyway. The reason I ask is because there are days that I question that in myself. Thursday and Friday are great case-in-point days for me to walk you through that might give you an inclination as to the great burden I sometimes bear versus the joy and love that I pray is displayed through my life everyday. Much of the case work that I manage is based on my perception of what could easily be described as emergent, or desperate. If I can't get this homeless patient the meds he needs, he will be found deceased in a car that he is temporarily staying in. If I can't find this single mom a place to stay with her kids by the time the hotel forces her to leave, they will have to sleep the streets until some other option opens up. If I can't find transportation for the addict to get to the rehab before they change their mind and decide that the physical pain of withdrawal is more than they can handle, I have lost again. 

Now, now, now. I must move on it now. 

A very dear friend reminded me that it is easy to get caught up in trying to figure out the solution to the problem before giving God the time to make His move. Sometimes that sense of urgency that sits on my chest can somehow hinder my own ability to rely on God and His timing, not my own. And [God] forbid if the pressure that I feel in a moment of dispair would hinder the glory that God is about to get by revealing His plans if only I would run to Him first instead of when I feel like the cards are stacked against me and my client  all I know to do is cry out to Him with all the breath that I have left in my lungs. 

Even if the timing isn't my own. Even if the answer doesn't come. The truth remains: all I need is Him. Yes, there is sorrow sometimes, but the joy that I have is not based on the temporary feeling of happiness that I have because it handled the situation like I wanted, nor is it based on the heartache that I sometimes see; my joy comes from knowing that I don't have to understand everything, but rather in knowing that I am a daughter of the King of kings and He has brought me to this place and equipped me to carry out His plans, and loves me no matter if I succeed or fail miserably.

So Father, thank you for this joy you have given me. Direct my feet, God. Close whatever needs to be closed, and continue opening what needs to be opened. Place me where you can use me, and continue to bless me with the joy that I get from simply walking with you, not on the temporary temperature of the day. Your daughter, Sarah

Typical nineties girl/work book?

I would like to wish a formal apology.

You see, I am a nineties girl. I graduated high school in 1998 from Conway High school (Hail to the blue and white, in all its radiant splendor, yada yada yada, go Wampus Cats, go!) and sometimes when I write on time sensitive subject matter, I forget that there are readers who may not realize exactly what I am in reference to. This is one of those posts, sorta.

The year was 1995ish. You see, while I may not have ever been a high school cheerleader (surprise, surprise, I know...), I was determined to wear the shoes that hit the nineties school yard the same way the flock of seagulls hairstyle hit the eighties. They were called Asics and they were beautiful. At the time, if you didn't own a pair of them, it was basically the same generational sin as if you were a girl who didn't own a Cabbage patch doll in the year 1986. The need was great to own a pair and in true-high-school-girl-drama-language, you were lame if you didn't. Or even worse, if your parents bought you the knockoffs from Walmart or somewhere else, you might as well banish yourself to the ball pit at Showbiz pizza (or Chuck-e-Cheese).

I had honestly forgotten about all of this stuff for a long time until I had kids. It was then that words like "North face" and "Under Armor" started surfacing on Christmas lists and I realized the kind of fear that my parents must have faced when I started uttering words like "Asics" or "Birkenstocks" to them. The days of simple clearance buys during Christmas shopping became utterances that mimicked, "I am not paying $58 for a fleece pullover just because the label reads a specific way." The grinch in me forced a smile on my face as I grumbled to the cashier, "You bet I want my receipt," as if keeping a record of the misery would somehow make me feel better when I was filing for bankruptcy after the new year.

Today, my outlook changed a little bit. (Don't act like you didn't see it coming...You knew this story would take a turn....Stay focused, people. Christmas is on the way for crying out loud.) For the last two weeks, I have had the honor to work with a precious family to which four children under the age of ten belong. Tonight, I was on a mission to find enough clothes to simply provide their mama for one outfit for every day of school per child. Each child had two complete outfits of their own, so I needed three additional outfits per child, or 12 outfits total. I headed to the pantry and pulled out my list with each child's size as well as if they were a boy or a girl and started digging in. With every piece of clothing that I placed in its pile according to the child's need, I remembered those old Asics. I remembered how proud I was of mine that I had to wear them like all of the popular girls. As I examined each shirt, pair of pants, and even nightgowns, I wondered what these kids would feel like when they didn't have to wear the same outfit every other day because that is all they had.

Suddenly I began to feel angry when I would find a shirt or pair of pants on it that had a blemish on it. I remember thinking about how special I felt in those Asics. How dare I find anything but the best for these kids?  

Folks, I know I get on here a lot and talk about God's plan for each one of our lives and how His love is so abundant, and how it changed me. That is all true, and I will never backtrack on that statement. -My life is the result of an ever-powerful, ever-loving God who saw something in me that I sometimes have a hard time coming to grips with. Like me, really? But yes, and you too. There are also days when I question why the answers don't come as clearly for this person as they do for that one; why God deals His hand this way over here and a different way over there. But what I do know is that while I may never know that answer until I come face to face with Him, I cannot stand by and do nothing.

Matthew 5:14 says that we are the light of the world. We are. So ask yourself, how can I shine my light today? Is it by checking on an elderly neighbor? Is it by making calling up a local pantry and seeing what they need at the moment? Is it by simply initiating a conversation with your checker at Kroger and telling them they are doing a good job? The possibilities are endless. The reward is eternal. <3

Under sheltered mom

I can't say I wasn't warned. I knew it would be tough, but answering the call to actively show my neighbor how much I love them is my  mission, messy or not. Today it was messy.

I was headed to the office to pick up an appointment card when I saw one of the homeless regulars that visits us sometimes. Hanging out so that she could let her phone charge, I noticed she was missing her shoes as I approached. She immediately started telling me that her feet were hurting and I sat down on the ground in front of her and noticed that her feet were swollen. Not only were they swollen, they looked like she had been walking around without her shoes on and were really dirty and had a few open sores. Her feet looked rough and I other than letting me clean them off a little bit and pass on some Ibuprofen, she wasn't interested in much else that I had to offer. No shoes, no bandages.  Just some TLC, medicine, and a ride to a friends house because walking at the time would have been murderous on her ravaged feet. She smiled at me after she unloaded all her bags from the car and it was then that I realized that providing a solution to a problem (in her case, the condition of her feet) sometimes takes a back seat to simply being there.

It wasn't long after that I got a call about one of my clients who received a call that she was being evicted from her apartment and within the next couple of hours, she and her two elementary age sons would have nowhere to go after a long day at work and school. As I raced across town to explain to the apartment manager that she had a new job and just needed one week before she received her first full paycheck and plead with them to let her stay, her fear became my own. Knowing that she was doing everything right, that nothing that had happened to her was her fault, my heart broke as I thought about how it would have to feel to try and figure out how I was going to explain to my kids that they had no food, clothes, or even somewhere to sleep for a few days. Knowing that this would be their reality very shortly. 

Unfortunately, management could never be reached. I did plead with the maintenance man to let them in for just a minute so that they could grab some food and clothes and he agreed, but couldn't give them long to do it. We went to the apartment and the kids were waiting when we got down there. The youngest started crying as soon as we pulled up and needing to go to the bathroom and was asking for an after-school snack. Knowing that they basically had to grab whatever they could carry with them as fast as they could, the process was overwhelming. Mama headed to the kitchen and started grabbing food and water while a sister who had showed up grabbed laundry as quick as she could. The kids were given bags to fill toys with and it was a whirlwind of emotion and necessity combined. Finally, my client got a call that she could stay with a friend so as we went different directions, I headed to the grocery store and wept for her for the next thirty minutes from the parking lot.  

How would I have explained to my children those circumstances? How overwhelming was it for her to even fathom the thought of not having food to feed her children? The tears fell hard as that reality became real in such a tangible way through her story. There was nothing about this that she deserved yet here she was, trudging through. I think the thing that surprised me the most was that through all this, the last thing she said to me was, "Thanks for everything you tried to do today. Do you think I could come to church with you on Sunday?" 

Somehow, through everything that happened today, she experienced love. It was messy, angry, desperate, so desperate, but love shone through all of that and hope remained after all. 

"In a world that is so confused about what love is, I'm more convinced than ever, that when they see it, and when we get it right and we live it out, love never fails." (Tim Britton, 9/10/17)

Through His eyes

One of the things that I ask God for pretty regularly is to let me see things as if I were seeing them through His eyes. When He does, it is almost as if you can never look through the same lenses that you previously used because it is almost as if a shift occurs and your eyes have been opened. One of the things that burdens me is when people have seen something traumatic happen in their lives and it has distanced them from God. As someone who has seen God take the broken pieces of a life and make it beautiful again, times of struggle are never what we want but knowing that victory awaits on the other side because of who HE is enough to shout "Glory!" even when the world as seen through our own eyes can be terrifying; seeing through the lenses of a Savior can bring certainty during the unknown, peace through the tumult, even love amidst hate.

But what if you don't know? The concept of understanding that God is good and all who believe in Him is hard for someone to understand if they feel abandoned by Him, or if they believed God actually allowed that bad thing to happen to them. Or worst of all,believing God made that bad thing happen because of something bad they did. 

If this is something that you struggle with, let me be very clear here: God has not left you and the pain that you are feeling or have carried with you has not gone unnoticed by the Almighty. He is able to bring restoration to your story.

In the last week, God has sent divine appointments my way. I have always believed that God will meet you where you are, and sometimes that means sending people your way. I was able to speak with a sweet friend about her early diagnosis of cancer during childhood and how that experience has brought an appreciation to each day that she is healthy. She battled cancer in such a way that even now, over twenty years later, to recall the story brings tears to her father's eyes. Because the type of cancer that she was diagnosed with is more common in adults in their twenties, every time she is sick for an extended amount of time of senses something different with her body, she goes in for an MRI. Her smile is beautiful and contagious, and as she watches her little boy grow up, I can't imagine what joy it must bring her to be given the gift of another day to see what the next day will bring. 

Last night I sat down with a friend whom I have prayed for and that God would break the chains of  an alcohol addiction for her so that she could experience the life that Jesus has for her. The prayers that I spoke were manifested last night as she wept at my kitchen table and told me about an encounter she had with God in which He told her that Her chains were not too strong for Him to break. As we sat together tonight and opened up the Living Word of God, the addictions fully came to light as she pulled the (un-prescribed) pain pills from her purse and we claimed that ALL chains would be broken in the powerful name of Jesus. Please be in prayer for my friend as she is precious to me, but moreso to Christ. 

Beloved friends, feeling as though we have somehow been left behind or forgotten about by the Almighty Father who beautifully created us in His Image is lucifer's trademark move  and when we truly understand our own identity in Christ, we understand how we are a masterpiece that He didn't put together for our own glory, but for His. Realizing that your story, your life, has a purpose, is one of the greatest gifts that we can claim because it gives us the assurance that we are never alone but being sought out by the Shepherd that wants nothing more that to have an intimate relationship with us.

Father God, 

Thank you for divine appointments. I pray that you would simply keep them coming. I lift up my precious friends to you, as well as others that I didn't mention that find themselves struggling and wondering where you are. Reveal yourself in their lives as you have revealed yourself to me. 

I love you.

The Garden of Life

Spring has arrived! (Unless it snows. Let's face it: this is Arkansas.)

Aside from the arctic front that moved through today, dropping our temp highs about 20 degrees colder than what they had for the first part of the week, the depression known as winter numbness has been washed away with the potential for sweet smells of honeysuckle, the sight of daffodils blooming, and the invigoration of getting dirt underneath my nails as I start the process of bringing back to life the production of fresh produce growing as spring gives way.

Do I have my own garden? Nope. And it is a shame, too. One of my favorite movies is "Steel Magnolias" and my favorite character of the movie is overall-wearing, ugly-hat donning, tomato-picking character "Ouiser" (pronounced "Wee-sa") whose character embraces the Southern culture in a powerful way and delivers the statement, "Southern women are supposed to wear funny-looking hats  and ugly clothes and grow vegetables in the dirt. It's what we do."

Because that's what we do. And if you don't have a garden, you find one and work in it. 

So I found one, and I love it. Actually, there are four of them. These gardens that I am proud to be a part of exist in four locations--3 in neighborhoods that serve low-income families and the newest one at a church. The COHO Garden Club (or City of Hope Outreach) works to bring nutritional education as well as healthy food alternatives to the areas in which they exist to some of our community's most valuable commodities--our children. The kids love to be a part of the program and the looks on their faces when they start to see the seeds they've helped plant break past the surface of the dirt and start to take form is all anyone could ask for.


Last weekend, we all rounded up our tools (or borrowed some) and headed to the gardens so we could harvest what was left from fall planting and put down new soil and other things to make the garden fertile when planting time came around. At the location I was at for the majority of the time I spent gardening that day, we have two raised beds that sit inside an area surrounded with timber borders and topped off with mulch. We had put everything that was supposed to go into the beds out and were finishing things off by laying out the mulch when I started to wonder if we would have enough. I am definitely no mathematician, but if I had guessed, you couldn't have convinced me that two bags of mulch would have been enough to cover the space I needed them to. Nonetheless, I distributed the two bags all over the area while another volunteer and I started to space it out. Keep in mind, there was already mulch on the ground; this was just to add to what had been put down a season or two prior.

As I started to use the hoe to distribute the mulch throughout the bed, I saw where the old mulch was tossed up and quickly blended with the new, giving every square inch of that garden the facelift that it needed after weathering the dreary winter. My doubt soon turned to determination to make that garden look beautiful throughout because of the ability of the new mulch to bring life back to the old. Once it was all said and done, the garden was revived and ready for the spring crop to be planted so that those priceless faces from the families that they served would once again be blessed by them.

And then I began to wonder: How often do we doubt God's ability to breathe life into us again?

 I know that I have been guilty of focusing my eyes on the situation that is right under my nose rather than taking comfort in the  Almighty One's abilities to produce more fruit than I will ever need to make my life abundant again. He is the One who gives life to the weary, gives comfort to the hurting, gives hope to the hopeless. He is  the one who saw me at my weakest and loved me anyways. And He is the One that restored my life when my garden had no foundation whatsoever, but rather withered up vines that barely had any life left.

The Great Gardener planted seeds in my life and watered them, giving me hope again. He restored my soul. He took the broken pieces of my life and replenished my thirst for living for Him, praise His Holy Name! 

Friend, do you doubt God's ability to save you? Or even to love you? Have you found yourself questioning whether or not God can take the circumstances of your life and make them beautiful again? Now is the time to let go of the uncertainty and allow God to reclaim the specific call that He has on your life and has since before you came from your mother's womb. His love has never changed for you and if you were ever like me and doubted God's ability to love you after you stopped loving yourself, know that it is not true. You. are. loved.

My Father,
Thank you for always giving us enough of what we need. You have an amazing way of taking our doubts, fears, or insecurities and replacing them with assurance, peace, and love. Jesus, you said that you chose us and appointed us so that we could bear fruit that would last. Help me to remember that I have been chosen to take your light to a hurting world that needs nothing more than to know that you love them, too. Please replace my insecurities with the truth that I am a chosen child of Yours; that nothing I can do will change your love for me, and that while my garden may need to be pruned from time to time, as long as you are the One doing it, it will continue to be beautiful because of who you are in me. Lord, if anyone struggles like this, remind them who they belong to. Remind them that they  are made beautiful because of who You are and they are commissioned by you to bring hope to a weary world.

In the name of Jesus, name above all names, keeper of my heart,
 Sarah Kathryn

Friends, if you are interested in learning more about COHO, please visit the website http://www.cityhopeoutreach.com, or you can find them on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cohoconway or  https://www.facebook.com/groups/391741121029110/.

church book

Laundry in my house is tricky business. Because of crazy busy schedules, I would like to officially label myself  a "binge launderer," or someone who waits until every laundry basket in the house is full of dirty clothes before she starts her day-long trek of restoring the empty dressers and closets to their original, well-stocked, functional selves. My laundry day is usually a Saturday, and usually on this day, the thought, " I wonder how much it would cost to pay someone to do this?" enters my mind. But this is real life, and I have to squeeze laundry detergent into my already-tightly squeezed grocery budget, so paying someone to do it is out of the question. Plus, I fear judgment, so there's that. It's one thing to admit my struggles with the laundry horde on a blog entry, but a whole other story for a real life person to deal with the dirty underwear that my children can produce. Judgment duly noted.

My husband is the greatest person known to man. Well, besides Jesus. And since Jesus is actually no longer a man, my husband wins the award. He is the "in-between-laundry-handler" and when a request is made for something specific to be washed during the dirty-laundry-day-purge, he sweeps in and saves the day. He is my ever-after Prince: my king of football jerseys and soccer clothes cleaner; the clothes that we get one pair of, yet have to be washed sometimes sixty times a week during those specific seasons. He is my hero and I have been known to dish out extra doses of lovin's when I can see he is having a busy laundry day because it is not my busy laundry day. Bless him. 

The kids know when it is my laundry day and usually avoid me like the plague. At any time, my regular calls of "Kids, come here!" can be met with eye rolls, grunts, complaining, and sloth-like movement upon exiting their locations of isolation where they are sure my pleas to go put up their laundry won't be heard and enter into whatever location I am working from. 

Nice try, kids. Be thankful. You have clean underwear. You're welcome. 

Maybe it is because I just woke up from a 3 and a half hour nap and am feeling like a reborn person who needs to do laundry and actually has some motivation to do it, but this topic of  laundry is not really what is on my heart. A million thoughts were going through my mind as I fell asleep and I just knew that when I woke up, I would produce a piece of literary art that would send  PR team to my door begging for my employment for one of their publications, but alas, here I am writing about laundry. 

So now is where I try to make a connection between my laundry wars and what has really been stirred in my heart. Previously I mentioned my children's response to my "Kids come here!" plea. It can be met with less-than-jolly attitudes as I have them transport their newly cleaned wardrobe into its designated spots and even though I am doing something to help them (who doesn't like clean underwear?), they are less than optimistic to rush in and take hold of what I have done for them, or why I am calling them.

Let's put the laundry away for a sec (see what I did there?) and get real for a moment. If you are reading this, you probably know a little bit about me. To say that I am a prodigal daughter is very much an understatement. I am sorry to assume that if you are reading this, you know what I mean when I call myself that, so let me explain. In the Bible, specifically Luke 15:11-32, there was a man who had two sons. One son was level-headed and responsible and the other was not; the prodigal son took the inheritance that his dad gave him and squandered it while the responsible son stayed behind to take care of his dad and the land, yada yada. Two very different types of personalities: one good, one bad. When the father learned that the son who has gone through his inheritance by being irresponsible was coming home, he didn't think twice about judging his son, rather embraced the fact that his son was coming home where he could be safe. The "bad" son had done so many things to mess up his life, yet the father welcomed him home for no other reason than he loved him unconditionally.

 Much like God, our eternal Father. He loves us. He longs for us to know that and to quit convincing ourselves that we have to do something to prove that we are worthy of His love. We are not worthy, but He still loves. 

When I turned my life back to God, a fire was lit. My focus became about  God and how He could love a prodigal daughter  like me, but I realized that it wasn't because of myself but rather of the perfect love that He had bestowed upon me. It has been roughly ten years since that fire stirred in my heart and I am so thankful that it did. My identity changed and while I will never be perfect, or even close, I am redeemed by God's power in my life. 

This girl (me) is a prayer warrior. Not just a "I'll pray for you" kind of girl, but more like a "I'm going to cry out to God on your behalf, things are going to get messy, things are going to get ugly, I am crawling to the Almighty throne on your behalf and I will encounter the Holy Spirit," kind of girl. Don't get me wrong: the world needs "I'll pray for you" pray-ers. (As in people, not the act) The fervent, steadfast, and always-reliable pray-ers have upheld the kingdom of God on so many occasions. James 5:16 tells us that the effective, fervent prayers of a righteous man has great power! Power that comes from God, not from whichever way we choose to pray because He hears them all. I love seeing prayers manifest and used to run around like a schoolgirl asking with anticipation (to the person I had prayed for) how God had chosen  to respond to my prayer. Like I somehow had a direct line to the Father or something. At what point did that stop and did I start responding to the Father in the same way that my kids respond to me on laundry day? "Don't they know that I have what they need? Don't they know that instead of worrying about the small details, I've got them covered?"

(Cue dramatic drum sound indicating a sad twist in the story.)

 Once upon a time, there was a girl who had a very giving heart that caused her to want to do so much for the kingdom of God that she would never turn a man away that needed help.  She lived by the credo, "Never walk away from someone who deserves help; your hand is God's hand for that person." (Proverbs 3:27) She volunteered in her community, her church, her kids' school, anywhere where there was a possibility that she could be the hands or feet of Jesus. She felt called in many directions and every time she would respond "yes" to a new calling, she felt her relationship strengthen with God. But then life got complicated. Instead of responding to the things of her heart, she found herself operating out of the necessary instead of the calling. She found herself getting so caught up with the "must-haves" that she forgot WHO the real must-have was. One day, she woke up to find that although she had not backslid by any means, she was no longer seeking the one who put the callings in her heart. As she sit and listened to her pastor deliver a message on one Sunday morning, she became emotional thinking about how close to God she once felt and regretted taking her eyes off of the One whom had been calling her all along. It wasn't necessarily about where she had been called before, or what her life looked like now, it was about the One who had been calling her and how she had allowed her own management of her life to take over God's direction for her life.

There's good news, though. We change, but God stays the same. Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Maybe you are like me and don't remember what you are called to do. Maybe you once knew, but lost sight of it trying to keep up with the busyness of life. Maybe you are still waiting to be called somewhere specifically. Maybe you know your calling yet haven't taken that step of faith. Whatever the case, know the one who calls you. Stay connected with Him. Don't allow the circumstances of life interrupt you from the One who really matters. Don't allow satan to convince you that you are so far away from  God that getting back is impossible. That is a lie.

Whether you are a prodigal child who has gone far from Christ or an anointed child of God who is involved in a lukewarm relationship, seek Him and you will find Him. Open your Bible.( 1 Peter 2:9) Don't have one? Let me know. Pray, however it looks. But most importantly, worry less about your calling but more about the one who calls. The rest will fall into place.