it's january and everywhere we turn people are talking about change. be the change.

when your children arrive, the best you can hope for is that they break open everything about you.  your mind floods with oxygen.  your heart becomes a room with wide-open windows.  you laugh hard every day.  you think about the future and read about global warming.  you realize how nice it feels to care about someone more than yourself.  and gradually, through this heart-heavy openness and these fresh eyes, you start to see the world a little more.

– Amy Poehler

you really do start to see the world a little more.
m just returned home from her second humanitarian mission, a life-giving opportunity to see and experience a developing nation and their poverty first hand.
not that i haven't always cared about poverty and people with struggles etc.  we have sponsored a child  for many, many years.  we however, send a check each month and a small stipend at the holiday and maybe one other time during the year.  we get an update on the child but we don't personally know them other than what we read in the updates.  we have never visited them or held them in our arms.

   i worry endlessly when m is away,  there is very little/no communication while she is gone.  it's hard when you are so connected to someone and then you experience so many empty hours with no
communication.  the world is a complicated place and every day the news has another devastating story.  this week has surely been filled with horror.  when you send your child off even though you support what she does, it's hard, really hard. 

 when she stepped off the plane this morning there was such a flood of relief, she was home safe and sound.   but, also a changed person arrived. changed in a good way.  it was another opportunity for her to see the world and another piece of its hardship. a part of the world where life is upside down and logic leans to the left.  it is in the unraveling of this world that we are reminded where our true gift is found.  we can  have beautiful things, but all "things" in this world are only temporary.  
every "thing" will unravel in time.  but when we share our heart and if we dare to hand it over, that  love is multiplied.  

sharing stories over breakfast made me realize how very much we can take for granted.  how many people suffer daily. - sure,  we know about the homeless, the poor, the drug addicts,  but at least in this country we have access to health care.  many of these folks have no health care and no way to get it.   she spoke about a man laying on a mattress outside his house suffering with cancer with only tylenol to relieve his pain.   she said for a brief moment she wondered how can you ever make a difference when there is so much need everywhere? 
certainly a good question.  

but... . when they had completed building the house (which she said was about the size of our family room)  for a single mom of three whose husband had died, the smiles never stopped.   
the tears flowed freely and the difference they made really, really mattered.  she witnessed joy and faithfulness from those who live with nothing

so maybe, just maybe, we can change the world, at least our world, one good deed at a time.

we are so proud of m for all that she offers and for her amazing heart.

love sent xo

incredible love in an ordinary world.