Church camp!!

Sunday night, 1:10am. T-minus seven hours and fifty minutes until I get to leave for church camp. AHHHH!!! Church camp is the best! I look forward to seeing all of the kids, watching their little minds learn about this awesome Jesus that loves them so much, and eating smores around a campfire while I eat foods that no sensible adult should ever touch. And the snack shack. Oh, thank you, Jesus, the snack shack. 

So why am I sitting in the ER at this time? As fate might have it, I am looking at a big ugly diagnosis of strep with the following companion of a shot in my rump to fix the problem. Okay, no big deal. Church camp is tomorrow and this lady says I am good to go, so off I go! I get home in record time and fall asleep with a smile on my face knowing that tomorrow will bring so much goodness. 

There's only one thing. Just because that ER nurse said I was good to go doesn't mean that my body agreed. About two hours into the morning on the first day, my head starts to pound. My throat is on fire. My fever spikes every 3 hours and 45 minutes so I am eating Ibuprofen like they are M&M's. This first day will be the hardest and the rest of the week will be great! Or not. I carry on this way for the next few days, having times where I feel much better and am convinced I am on the uphill climb, only to feel my teeth chatter when the fever spikes once again. I enjoy the moments I can and rejoice through sick eyes at the fun taking place all around me. Good memories are happening, but I spend much of my time thinking about what it would be like to lay down in my very own bed. 

Today arrived and I am sad that it is time to go home. I think about the new little kids I got to meet and promise myself that I will remember their names for next year. I think about what kinds of backgrounds that some of them have and wonder what kinds of homes they will be returning to. I know most of the kids that came with my church, but there were over 300 hundred kids each with his or her own story. Did I aid in pouring into them during their time spent at camp, or did they see the sick,  crabby side of me? God, I ask your grace to go before me if I spoke from a place that was more human and less of you. I pray that I didn't, in all of my sickly crabbiness, that their main take away from their church camp experience is you.

We pull into the church parking lot to return kids to parents so that they can tell them all about the fun time they had at camp. I load up two people's worth of luggage into my car (mine and Paxton's) and finally am on the road to my own home, my own bed, my own medicine, my refuge. I unload everything and just as I can see the end in sight, hear the voice of my teenage son say, " Mama, I am really hot." Mama instincts kick in and before I know it I am touching foreheads in search of a fever, only to discover that the heat he is feeling is due to an issue with the central AC. What I thought was going to be bedtime now turned into an impromptu trip to the pool so that everyone could jump inside and not overheat. We make it back home just in time to hear the words "You have to leave it off for a few hours while it thaws." Yeah, so great. Who needed that bed? Who needed those meds? Who needed to sleep for about 16 hours to get back into a normal functioning mode? Apparently, it would have to wait. 

My gosh, what a pity party. I think about the kids from camp and what going home might feel like for some of them. For the little girls whose home is not a safe haven like mine is. For the little boy who doesn't know who will celebrate his decision to follow Jesus for the first time at home the way he was celebrated at camp. Or for the staff member who pours herself out year after year for the kids that pass through the craft hall yet will return to an empty home this time due to the recent loss of her husband.  I know Jesus came back to save us all, but I pray that those are the ones that he is especially close to as they go home. 

With or without their sickness. With or without their air-conditioned home. With or without their exhaustion. I pray that Jesus was waiting for them all at the front door the minute they walked inside. Would you pray for them? 

Miracles on stage

I applaud you, Sunshine Academy. Here's why.

Rewind two years ago.  There was this precious little girl who (in my opinion) totally stole the show. It was our sweet Piper girl, and life pre-cancer was busy for our little performer. The following year, I had been invited back to the show to see a little girl in my Sunday school class perform. I found myself distracted by the thought of wondering when or if I would see Piper grace the stage with her presence again. I ran to the foot of the cross time and time again, reciting Isaiah 40:31 over Piper's life. That she would run and not grow weary; walk and not faint; soar high on wings like eagles.

Before I became an urban missionary, I worked for five years with special needs kids. I loved it, too. From babies that were born at 24 weeks and spent the first few months of life in the hospital before they were taken home by their parents; to children diagnosed with a low-functioning autism diagnosis and getting ready for kindergarten: I was blessed to play even the smallest part of a support for them and their families. And I prayed. My goodness did I pray. For their survival, for their development, for their cure, for the words I believed they would one day utter: I prayed.

When Piper was being born, I set an alarm to wake me up every hour while my sister-in-law was in labor so that I could cover her entry into this world with prayers of safety for both her and mama. What I am so happy to see now is that those prayers have not expired, and I believe that God still intercedes on her behalf, cancer or no cancer.

When Arellia announced a few weeks ago that Piper was going to be in a performance, I jumped for joy! Look at God, I thought. I forgot about those prayers, but he had not. It is funny how a desperate prayer said one year prior had been lost in my memory bank, yet not lost on God. The show would go on, and so would our Piper girl. It was the group that she performed with that caused these eyes to weep.

Of the eight children that performed that night, five of them had been covered in my prayers at one point during their life. The little girl whose heart had been operated on more times that anyone else I had ever heard of; the little girl whose smile far exceeded the attention her wheelchair brought her; the little boy who stole my heart at Sallie Cone and his little sister, too. And of course, our Piper girl. All of these children with different diagnoses and accompanying prayers. The show was amazing and God allowed me to see that He had heard my prayers for each child and was showcasing it right before my eyes.

At the end of the song, the performers huddled into a circle facing inward.  It was then that a precious little girl was lifted high from within them, and the realization that Piper was "flying high on wings like eagles" was being displayed from an ever-present God whose timing in all things is always perfect.

Please consider to #prayforpiper.

He left the 99.

I hesitate to write about this, simply because as a follower of Jesus, I am called to be a peacemaker. This post may have folks on both sides hating me, and that's ok. It's to be expected when you feel led to seek the approval of God and not man. I hope that those that read this will read through eyes glazed with grace, but I understand if not. Still, I will press on.

I am normally not the kind of person to look for the shock value when I write. I have nervously typed out the word "whore" in my writings before and obsessed whether or not using that type of wordage would somehow blemish my witness. I guess that's why I am thankful that at the end of the day, it is not my desire to please man; rather God. But like I said, this may leave both Christians and un-Christians alike not too fond of me, and that's ok.

Let me drop the first bomb and just get it out of the way: I feel sympathetic to Judas Iscariot.

Judas is the epitome of betrayal. His mockery of the marginalized came in many forms, sometimes acting as if he cared if the hungry ate, only to secretly hide his own greediness as he stole the money that people collected to feed those in need. He was a truly despicable person. Yet somewhere at the end of his story as Jesus' trial and impending crucifixion draw closer, we see a panicked Judas. Rushing back to the religious leaders and realizing what the cost of his betrayal would mean, Judas begs them to take back the money that he was paid for selling out Jesus. Though the Bible doesn't describe it exactly this way, my translation of that conversation would sound something like a frantic man having the biggest realization of his life, and begging to give back the money. Then as he realizes that the harm has been done, in all of his panic and shame and regret, he throws the money at the feet of the leaders as he rushes off to hang himself.

Judas was indeed human and while there is no one else who can claim that their actions directly impacted future generations as he did with the betrayal of Jesus, we find him panicking at the thought of the weight of his consequences. And just like Jesus reminded the criminal hanging beside him at Calvary, His sacrifice won the victory that would have those who call Him Lord free from the bondages that hold on to us; a chance to claim that victory over our own lives. What is the difference between me and Judas? I could point out some things, but at the end of the day, I was once just as lost as he. Panicked about what my life had become, the mistakes I had made, the choices I was running from: I guess you could say that when you measure it like that, I was Judas. No, I didn't directly betray the son of God or anything, but when I was lost, my claim to know an unknown God would have been the same answer as Judas's. What would it have looked like for Judas to receive intervention from God?

Abortion. It has to be one of the most heatest debates in our nation right now, and everybody has an opinion. "Abortion is murder!" "My body, my right!" We have all seen the political posters and most of us can identify what side of the fence we stand on, yet there is one area that seems to be neglected in the midst of this battle between life and death, and these are the mothers.

Judgment is possibly the easiest thing any of us does, and we do it so easily, don't we? We see someone driving a nice car, we assume they are wealthy. We hear about someone shopping at the Salvation Army, we assume they are poor. We hear about a shooting and assume it is in a poor, or even worse, black, neighborhood. We are quick to label abortion as murder and thus labeling the person that has had the procedure a murderer. We forget that Jesus himself came to seek and save the lost, including one murderer who would become the voice of Christianity throughout the uprising of Christ's kingdom early on: Paul. A divine intervention with the voice of God on the road to Damascus changed the course of Paul's life and it was because of this conversion, many people now understand what it means to encounter Christ and have him change your life. Me included.

Church, my plea is not that you would compromise your beliefs, but that rather you would start to operate outside of the black and white, but look inside the gray. As a person who has watched someone whom I love very dearly go through an abortion, the weight that they carry over the precious life that once lived inside them is insurmountable. I have had countless conversations with women who felt like they were no longer welcome back into the graces of God, let alone a church because of their decision. The church is supposed to be a place of healing, and when we turn those away or treat them any different because of a decision that they made, we are losing the message of Jesus. He came and proclaimed to offer life and offer it in abundance. His offering of love and healing was a message for all, not just those who had led a blemish-free life. And without that message of hope, the legacy that Jesus created for all of us merely becomes a hypothetical point for which there is no need for the kind of reckless love that he would offer to those who chose to turn from their sin and be healed.

For the drunken ones, for the addicted ones, for the betrayers, for the murderers, for the thieves...

Or just for me.

The visit

My husband and I teach a Sunday school class at the church that we attend and one of the things we like to help  our children's pastor do is take roll each morning. It's a simple practice really, and I never really thought twice about it until one name appeared on that list that belonged to a very precious little niece of mine, whose name is Piper.

Last August when her name showed up on the roll, Piper and her parents were already half a year into the treatments that she had to undergo in order to treat the cancer diagnosis. Her immunity would have to be heavily guarded and I found myself thanking God for giving Piper the kind of parents that were more intuned to her medical needs than any I had ever seen  before. As I scrolled through the list of kids that first promotion Sunday, realizing what it must have felt like for my brother and sister-in-law to not send their firstborn off to kindergarten hurt my heart. I remembered what it was like seeing my own boys off those days for the first time.

I looked back down on those list of children and instead of placing a checkmark next to Piper's name, I simply wrote,"God's will be done."

This morning, a beautifully dressed little girl with a long-flowing knit hat made to look like Belle from Beauty in the Beast walked into the children's department at Conway First church of the Nazarene. The other children, though careful about how to respond, rejoiced that the little girl that they have prayed for through her cancer journey, had arrived. A few commented that she had a cool mask on, and I could see her eyes smile beneath her medical mask as she realized that she was among her prayer warriors, and her friends.

The best part of the visit came when I bowed down next to my little niece and prayed during the altar time. I never would have thought that she was watching me or anything, but I realized that she had been when all of a sudden I felt the gentle wipe of a little hand across my face. It was Piper, and she was wiping away my tears. "Those are happy tears, Aunt Sarah, right? Happy tears, right?" she said.

Yes, my love. Those are the happiest tears I know.

Psalms 56:8 You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.

Thank you, Father. For sending your precious little messenger to bring healing to my heart today.