They broke his legs as a baby so he could be a better beggar...

OK as I read this devotional in my inbox this morning, I just couldn't keep the tears in my eyes.  Please click on the link and read so the rest of this makes sense.  I don't know why this seemed to do this to me today.  Maybe because I see these people.  And now it makes me wonder.  I see the man with no legs at the light begging for money.  Now I think was he in an accident, got an infection, a witch doctor appointment gone bad, or did his parents chop them off.  Or the woman with the growth in her stomach that literally looks like an alien is trying to come out of her body. Would she rather have this deformity because it is a money maker, than get an operation to fix her back to normal?  I wonder how many doctors have offered her free surgery. Only to get a "Nah...I'm ok this is how I live. This deformity has become my job.  No, really it is ok, I am blessed with this little money maker right here.  Without this, who could give me money, I am just normal.  Normal doesn't make money".  Or what about the one legged man I have known at the beach for the past 4 years.  He begs for money so he can buy a prosthetic leg.  He has mismatched too short crutches.  I want to take his crutches and adjust them to the right height for his tall lean body.  But I think, the less put together he looks the more people feel bad and want to help him.  Does he already have that new shiny leg, but keeps it at home since if he wore it now why would anyone want to give him money.

What about the kids that are out selling jhonnycakey (picture fried dough or funnel cake but with ketchup instead of butter, sugar and cinnamon) or palito de coco and all sorts of lolipops and treats.  These kids should be in school, but their family needs money.  The kids will probably sell more than the Mom could and although they should be in school, they might not have the proper paperwork to get into school.

I could never really understand all of this until I moved to the Dominican Republic and I got an eye opening to real extreme poverty.  It is real here, and I wonder why I was born rich in the US, vs dirt poor in a third world country.  We have no clue about real poverty in the US.  We don't know people that have a sore on their foot that hasn't healed in 10 years.  Yet, they get a new house with a concrete floor and that 10 year infection clears in a month.  We don't know what we would do or what choices we would make if we hadn't eaten in a week or had clean drinking water to drink.  What about if we were raised in such poverty that we barely ever got any protein to eat and we just lived a rice bloated life of filling ourselves when we could just hoping that we can survive the next day. Our only priority each day was how am I going to keep myself and my family alive.  What if we were never taught to read or our brains were even capable of functioning correctly because of years of malnutrition.  Or what if we lived in some little village in Africa and our Mothers fed us the left over mush after they made their alcohol and it at least filled our bellies and took us to a state that we were so sleepy we didn't ask for food anymore and we were so quiet when we were passed out.

I am not sure why I felt I had to say all of this...I guess because I was so clueless 4 years ago.   And when you know better you do better.  I was so inconvenienced by some many things back then I saw as important.  Now I realize how could I have thought that a real inconvenience was how dare my favorite restaurant stop selling my favorite pecan encrusted swordfish entree.  Or how dare my front loading washer decide today is the day to go on the fritz.  I was so selfish, I was so unaware of what kind of inconveniences were real inconveniences.  But I had no idea, I was in my own little US bubble.  Now I see life differently.  I feel guilty when I climb in my king size bed with clean sheets and too many pillows.  Or when I made my dog a bed out of a $12 piece of foam and I know it is better than the little boy I know about who used to sleep on a mattress of old clothes infested with bugs and rats and throw in a few tarantula nests.  Life is hard for most of the world.  Really hard.  I had no idea.  What can we do about it?  Well we can't help or save them all, but when I see them and I can help them I do.  So can you.  You see them.  Do you walk on by?  Do you drive past saying you don't have anything to give them on the way to buy a $5 frapachino?  I don't know that you could just jump right in to putting your hands on a person who you might not know when the last time they bathed, but you can do other small things.

When you see that person begging for money, if you are able and have enough for you and your family, give them some.  Don't judge them about what they will do with the money.  Give and let that be between them and God.  If you were homeless and cold and down in the dumps what would you want to escape your reality?  A cheeseburger or a nip of tequila?  Or instead of that after you go through the drive through for maybe the 10th time that month, pick them up something.  Or even better, stop and ask them their name and ask their story.  I don't know that this comes naturally to people.  I am not sure if I have always had the gift of an empathetic heart.  I think my Mom has it and she passed it on to me.  She was always bringing home people who needed a family.  I have always looked for a reason for people's irrational behavior.  There has got to be a reason they are so angry or they hurt people because well hurt people hurt people.  Or they must have something wrong with them mentally because normal healthy people don't usually shoot up movie theaters.  When everyone is praying for the families of those affected I am the one praying for the one who started it all.  And their families and their mothers because I can imagine that this isn't one of their favorite parenting moments.  I am just like this and it keeps getting worse the more I deepen my relationship with Jesus.  I see the world through the eyes of Jesus.  I think about how he would see the people he came in contact with.  I know it is cliche but "WWJD". What would Jesus do to the man who just walked away from the movie theater that he just shot up?  I think He take him in His arms and give him a big hug. "Come my child, I have been waiting for me to come to me."  That is Jesus kind of love. No judging love.  Unconditional love. Agape Love.  Outside of Christ living in us, I don't think we can ever love like this.  Even with the spirit of God alive in us, this love can be hard if we let our flesh and our past cloud our current situation.  I know what you are thinking..."So Jodi if someone killed your child you would just be like "So go be like Jesus and give him a hug" yea right!  Well I can tell you I know someone personally who after a man driving an 18 wheeler didn't even see the car carrying her father, and two daughters, and a friend of her daughters, killing them all, she actually did just that.  She went up to this man who was the last person to walk through the funeral home at 2 am and said "I forgive you".  There is hope for me too.  That was surely not her strength but Jesus' spirit in her that let her not put herself and her feelings first.  She by no means liked her circumstances, but she loves Jesus.  So when she loves people some of that Jesus in her just oozes out of her.  I want to love like that. Like Jesus loves. Unconditionally. Selflessly. Crazy love. Every. Time. No. Matter. What.

Just think too that the circumstances they are in aren't always their fault.  Sometimes it is but sometimes their parents broke their legs for their own personal gain.  Sometimes they had the short end of the stick right out of the gate.  Sometimes because someone never showed them real love they are not capable of showing it to themselves or others.  Give people a break sometimes.  Maybe you will be the first person that really cared about them in their whole lives.

In His Grip,

Jodi Shaheen

Happy 8th Birthday my Sweet Grace!!

So at 5:31 am on August 16, 2007 my little Gracie was born.  I didn't even know she had been born or she would be my daughter until 5 days later when I met her 3 lb. 4.5 oz. little self in the NICU.  God knew.  He knew this amazing plan long before I did.  He knew my heart.  He knew I was fed up with the waiting.  Oh, I told God one day in the men's locker room bathroom with the high sinks and urinals.  I lost it in that bathroom stall that day.  I thought after 5 years that I was finally pregnant, that we would finally be parents.  Nope.  I cried out to God all alone in that bathroom.  I told Him straight up..."I am sick of waiting!  I know you God and I know you have a happy ending to all this waiting, but I am sick of waiting for it!!"  I don't know the exact time after my little pitty party but it was soon.  The phone rang.  "We have a little girl for you when can you get here?"  I remember that call to my husband at work.  I was crying, I am sure he could barely understand me.  But an hour and a half later we were at the hospital.  She was so little.  I had never seen anything so little.  She was big though compared to the pictures on the wall of all the other peanuts.  Some were 1 pound.  She was so strong.  This morning I was thinking back to those first days.  I thought really about the fact that I didn't get to see her be born.  I teared up when I thought about why she was born so early.  God protected her from her mother who made a bad choice that day.  I am thankful that bad choice didn't hurt her little body as it really could have had lasting effects.  I then went to the 5 days that she was alone before I got there.  I know those amazing NICU nurses loved her.  But the 5 days she was without me.  I hope she doesn't remember or even know.

Here is our blog during those first days

Today she is 8

And she is precious.  And she still thinks she was in my belly.  And she doesn't notice she has different skin than me.  She loves animals.  She is compassionate.  Gives the best hugs.  Knows just when I need a kiss.  She is thoughtful.  She is so smart and loves to read.  She will worry about the little baby bird who fell out of the nest until you say you will feed it every 15 minutes until it can fly (thankfully it's momma came and got it),  She will wake you up at 4am to snuggle but then be too hungry and want you to make her mac and cheese or grilled cheese with roasted red pepper soup to dip it in.  She will burp so loud and your friends will be impressed.  She will put herself to sleep.  You will find her reading her old textbooks from her past school years.  She will forgive you every time.  Especially when she requested pumpkin cream cheese muffins for her birthday cake and that is the only thing you forgot to bring to the beach.  She will walk around Toys R Us for 3 hours and walk out with 7 new stuffed animals.  She will beg you to make her tea then not drink it.  She will insist on riding her scooter when you walk the dog and you will end up walking her scooter instead of the dog.  She will make the best vet when she grows up.  She will wear the same dress to church every single Sunday, the one she would never wear and now won't wear anything else.  And you will let her because everyone should have a church uniform right?

Happy Birthday my Sweet Gracie Girl...you have made the past 8 years so much better!!  I love you to the back of the moon eight kazillion times.  No, I love you more!!

Our love cup

This past weekend I not only turned a young 43 years old, but I also learned something really cool about love. I was in San Antonio with my husband for a Fellowship of Christian Athletes conference. Every 3 years they get all their missionaries and spouses together for a state of the union. It was great to see this amazing ministry and how it ticks. There were 1,200+ people there and 19 foreign countries were represented. Before the big stuff happened there were meetings with just the international missionaries. I missed the first few days, but got to share with everyone in the last day. 

Wow! I often found myself weeping. Weeping as Marvin our worship leader sang his little heart out right to the end of himself. I don't know much about him but I think God has changed him big time, and he was in awe at where he was now. 

After Marvin sang, a man got up, I can't remember his name, but a couple of things he said really stuck with me. 1st he talked about leaving a mark on the world and what does your mark look like. He showed a picture of one young man's mark. His mark was the dents his motorcycle left on the concrete block wall  of the school gym as he drove 65 mph into it, ending his life. I know another young man who left a mark for good and even after his 16 short years on earth, his life is still leaving marks for good through his legacy.

This man went on to talk about love. How we were loved will matter in how we are able to receive love. He used the illustration of a tea cup. We are all given one at birth and how people love us is reflected in that cup. If we were cherished and loved and cared for our fragile china cup will still be all in one piece. When others love us it will be able to receive and hold that love in our cup. The love will remain inside that cup. It may even overflow and we will be able to share that love and even understand what is given to us when others love us.

Not all of us are blessed with the right kind of love though. If we are loved incorrectly then there are visible cracks that will appear in our cup. Over time our cups become so broken and cracked. So when someone comes along to love us our cup can't hold that love. It falls through all the cracks and holes. We can't receive it. It could even be so bad that our precious cup is just smashed to smithereens and it may never go back together again. When love from others is supposed to fill it, but it can't because there are just too many cracks and even after it is glued glue still leaves openings for that love to leak out. 

This made me think of a few people that really got the raw end of the deal on love. It helps me understand why when others try to love them, they can't even hold onto that love. Their cup was smashed by those that should have loved them. It is going to take years to repair that cup. And sometimes only God can put that cup back together.

I want you to think of 2 things.

1.  What kind of mark are you leaving on the world?

2. Next time you meet someone, think about what their cup might be like. The ones with the broken cups will probably stand out more, and what would it take to show some compassion towards them.

In His grip,

Jodi