Painting for Joy and Charity

What an amazing week this has been! It started when I had the pleasure of going to see War Room at the movie theater with my neighbor and good friend Kathy. I loved the movie. We laughed and cried and felt convicted.

Then came a time of fasting and prayer to support an amazing event in Birmingham, Alabama where thousands of Christians marched, sang, prayed and expressed a unity of faith and a desire to do something real to help the genocide of Christians happening in the Middle East today.

The word has been spread through the internet about the policies of the United States government which will not allow Christians to come here to seek asylum. We as a nation turned away Jews and sent them back to Nazi Germany during those dark days. We are repeating that evil act today.

The government of Iceland said that they would take 60 people into their small country of 300,000 people. One woman thought that was not enough and so she got on facebook and asked who would take a family into their own home. Within 24 hours 10,000 people had said yes, we will. They all urged their government to do more.

And our government is saying no, none. So, I prayed and thought what can I do? I have no money to contribute. Going on twitter and posting a silly hashtag will not help anyone who is praying not to be murdered or to not have their girls raped. What could I do? I could pray and I am. I hope you will too.

And I can paint. So today I have placed a new planner insert on ETSY. You see it here. I am charging $5.99 for a two page digital download that can be used as a planner insert or any other way you choose. It costs me a few cents to place an item on ETSY and a few more for PayPal to process it. Everything about that I will be donating to Mercury One and the Nazarene Project. It is the prayer of the folks at Mercury One to raise $3 million dollars before Christmas to get many of these families out of the Middle East.

The United States will not take them, but other countries will. It takes $25,000.00 to rescue one family. The pennies I will earn from ETSY are the only way I can help.

It is my joy to ask you to help me help them.And it will be my joy to pray for each and everyone of you who buys this little offering I am making to pray for you and your families by name every day this year.

True joy comes to me when I serve God and place myself out there to serve others.

Despair orJoy - Life or Death

Have you ever wondered what the difference is between happiness and joy? I have pondered the question for many years. It seems to me that happiness is about doing what I want, getting what I want, having what I want. I am at the center. Happiness is all about me. Now don't misunderstand me. On the surface level there is nothing wrong with being happy. In fact, we have a solemn duty to those around us, as Dennis Prager is wont to say, to be as happy as we can.

For me however, I have found that joy goes deeper. Joy comes when I discover God working in the world. Often I find it in little things. I just saw this bird today and it brought me joy. I felt the joy, just as I can feel happiness, but the joy came from a deeper place. The joy came in being so amazed at the beauty of God's creation. Genesis tells us that he created much of what we see for us - that we might experience joy in it - and then come to know Him more and more.

Joy can come in the midst of very hard times. Joy can overwhelm us and bring us peace when there is no logic way we should be feeling peace. Joy defies man's logic. Joy is a gift from God in which I believe He shares a bit of His joy with us.

Many believe that we have come to a tipping point in our society. It seems we have lost our way. We are calling good evil and evil good. It is time for us to stand with God and judge evil as evil and good as good.

I cannot watch as people pick through a petri dish of baby parts and discuss the monetary gain that can come from selling them without feeling apalled. How can a person look at the tiny feet and hands in that dish, the tiny brain and see the joy that God had created in that baby. The child was murdered.It was torn apart in the womb that God created to protect the baby from harm. Yet many seem to want to walk away from the idea - the appalling idea of choosing death rather than life.

We see Christians beheaded, burned alive in cages, women and young girls being sold as sexual slaves and we turn away. Is it because we are overwhelmed by the horror. Or is it simply a question of not wanting our own happy bubble burst by the reality of evil rampant in the world?

Many who will read this will agree with me when I say it is time to stand and to call evil for what it is. It is time to stand for life. I believe we are standing on the edge of a cliff. The words of Joshus ring in my head - "15 “See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil, 16 in that I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in His ways, and to keep His commandments, His statutes, and His judgments, that you may live and multiply; and the Lord your God will bless you in the land which you go to possess. 17 But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away, and worship other gods and serve them, 18 I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land which you cross over the Jordan to go in and possess. 19 I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live; 20 that you may love the Lord your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days; and that you may dwell in the land which the Lord swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give them. " (Deutoronomy 30:15-20)

Soe who read this will stop being my friends. I know that. It will nto be the first time. Nor is it likely to be the last. But if I personally am going to plan for joy, I must choose life and a life with God as my light and guide. Will you stand with me and choose joy and life also?