Taking God's Love to the Ends of the Earth- Child Sponsorship

Today Jill from Compassion Family shares how her family takes God's love to the ends of the earth. Jill is a violinist, homeschooling mom, and is passionate about living missionally and intentionally. On her blog you will find some wonderful ways to include the whole family in serving others. I hope you will take time to stop by and say hello!

I have a fascination with other countries and cultures. I love learning about other people and how they live, but I've found that the people I’m drawn to most are the people who live in desperate circumstances. God has broken my heart for those who live in poverty - especially the children.

In 1994 I heard about Compassion International, a Christian, child-development ministry that works in 26 of the poorest countries in our world. I was a college student, attending a school with a global world view and heavy emphasis on cross cultural learning.  I was aware of other cultures having already spent time in Mexico, France and Spain, but this was my first glimpse into the third world. God used the sponsorship of a young girl in Kenya to open my eyes to the opportunity of loving my neighbor in a global context.

Over the years, our family has chosen to fully embrace the ministry of child sponsorship through Compassion and has taken deliberate steps to pursue this opportunity as a family. I am passionate about involving my own children in ministry and service. It is not good enough for my children to see me writing to our sponsored children, or to hear me praying for them….I want them to actively participate.

I see child sponsorship as a very real and tangible way to carry out both the great commission and the great command. The commission I speak of is the one Jesus mentions in Matthew 28:19 - “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations.” The command I speak of is the one Jesus gave in Mark 12:31  - “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

As our family sponsors children around the world, the global view of our own children widens and expands. We are able to develop a relationship with the children we sponsor through letters, and have the opportunity to disciple them with each word we write.

It takes very intentional steps to make our Compassion children more than a cute face on the refrigerator or more than a name we sometimes throw into our prayers. Three of our four family members have “birthday buddies” - sponsored children with whom we share a birthday. Both of my daughters received their personal birthday buddy (with an exact birthday match) when they turned 6 years old. In an effort to help my daughters own these relationships, Compassion has assigned them as the correspondents so all letters come addressed to them personally.

We also try to bring the world into our home. We have a very large world map in our family room and refer to it regularly when we talk about our Compassion children. It serves as a great focal point for our home and visual reminder to pray for our neighbors all over the world. As a home-educating family we go to great lengths to take a global approach to our learning, regularly reading books about other countries and cultures, but especially those in which our sponsored children live.

In the past two years my husband and I have both had the opportunity to travel to other countries and experience firsthand what life is like in other parts of the world. Although our children have not (yet) gone with us, we have been able to share with them the stories, photos and mementos we collect on our journeys. My hope is that my girls will be able to see beyond themselves and our fairly cushioned lives and recognize the opportunities to love their neighbors both in our community and in the world around them.

I hope you will take a moment to visit Compassion International and consider sponsoring a child by clicking here. 

Read the rest of this series here. 

Taking God's Love to the Ends of the Earth

"We don't care about poor people.

If we cared about poor people, don't you think we'd do something about it?"

His words were like a knife through my back. I hadn't been back in the States for long, and most of my adult life to that point had been spent committed to working with the poor in one way or another.

He spoke for the whole group. Each of them called themselves Christian (each one involved in church leadership even) and at that point I called them friends. Most of them had known me as a child, when my family lived off of food pantries and hand-me-downs.

As his words settled heavy in my heart I waited for someone to speak up not only in my defense, but for the defenseless. The silence and blank stares overwhelmed me more than the words. The shock and anger leaving me speechless, I could do nothing but walk away.

Although it happened years ago, I am still hurt by these people, and hurt by the church. Because really, when I look at the church I am sure there are few bold enough to make the statement my "friend" did that day. But in reality, for many of us, that statement is true.

We hear about the millions of orphans who lie in wait in orphanages and on the streets around the world. We hear of children being sold into slavery of the worst kinds and the epidemic of human trafficking presently taking place. We know that nearly a billion people go to bed hungry each night and that over one billion people do not have access to clean drinking water. We hear of Christians around the world who are imprisoned, tortured, and martyred for their faith.

Yet here we sit, on our comfy pews in our extravagant churches, parking lots filled with luxury vehicles, blood diamonds dangling from our ears and sparkling off our fingers, more in awe of our gods than our GOD. We are like peacocks on a Sunday morning, more concerned about showing off our tail feathers than the child slaves who made them, more concerned about where we will dine after the church service than the 800 children that died during the service because of a lack of basic needs, such as food and water.

Don't you agree that if we really cared, we would do something about it?

Throughout this series I have been sharing ways that we can tangibly love our neighbors. In this post, although we are coming to a close, I want to rewind and get to the heart of the matter. Today I want to offer ways for us to learn how to love our neighbors: To have passionate affection and personal attachment to our neighors around the world.  And if you are already there, let's learn to love them deeper.

Because once we learn to love our neighbors, we will have no choice but to care. 

Here I offer a few simple yet profound ways to get started:

Fast and pray- Pray for God to break your heart for the things that break His. Pray that your eyes would be open to the lost, hurting, and hungry around the world. Pray for an overwhelming love for His people.

Get to know them- Watch or read the news. Know the issues going on in our world. Learn about people groups and other cultures. Get to know the roots of poverty so you can better understand the cause and effect. Be well informed so you can make responsible choices in how to act.

and finally...

Read the Word- Since we calls ourselves "Christ-like," let's study how Christ instructs us to treat the poor, widows, fatherless, and defenseless. Let's follow His lead. The Bible is full of scripture from beginning to end about God's heart for the poor, but here are a few great places to start:

Deutoronomy 24:17-21
Isaiah 58
Luke 12:22-34
Luke 14:15-24
James 2

" This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth." - 1 John 3:16-18

Read the rest of this series here. 

(For any of you looking for places to give or get involved, there a list on the right hand side of my home page titled "These People Inspire Me." You will find some great organizations listed here. Also, stay tuned this week as we will be sharing some tangible ways of taking God's love to the ends of the earth.)

Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love Your Neighbor- Reaching out to Our Communities

Today Jill from Daily Bread shares about ministering to her community, family style. Jill is a violinist, homeschooling mom, and is passionate about living missionally and intentionally. She and her family strive to live out the prayer found in Proverbs 30, verse 8: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread." I hope you will stop by Jill's blog and take a peak at the beauty and generosity found in living simply.

It all started when my local librarian asked me to play my violin for the residents of the local senior home during the weekly library hour. I wasn’t playing professionally anymore because I had two young daughters, so I was eager to have an opportunity to play.

As I played and my daughters clung to my legs, walked around my music stand, danced a little jig and sat on the floor, I noticed the residents were taken with my daughters. Big smiles, twinkling eyes, arms stretched out in hopes of touching a child.

I realized how much this older generation wanted and needed interaction with a younger generation. And I knew from personal experience the value of a child interacting with the elderly. I went home that day and began reflecting on my own upbringing. As a child, my family “adopted” a woman who lived in our local nursing home. Each week we would visit Mary, taking her a dish of her favorite ice cream from Baskin Robbins, inviting her into our home for each holiday and family celebration. She became part of our family – a very important part of our family.

After several days of reflection and brainstorming, I proposed to the librarian that we start an intergenerational story time at the Senior home. We would invite families from the community to share a story together and do a craft. Although I moved away 5 years ago, this intergenerational story time is still taking place.

Now that my daughters have grown up a bit and have learned to play the violin, we make monthly visits to a local nursing home to share our music with the residents. We are often joined by one or two of my other students and it’s become a highlight of our month. I love it when my girls eagerly ask when it’s time to visit the nursing home again.

An added blessing is that they are not the least bit intimidated by the people who live there or others who live in similar situations. Both my husband and I have grandmothers who now live in nursing homes. When we are able to visit them, our young girls are eager and excited to visit their great-grandmas. It blesses me to see them comfortable in a situation where many people feel uneasy.

Anyone can visit a nursing home. You don’t have to have a musical talent to share, you just have to have an open heart. Take a Bible along and begin reading it aloud. Sit next to someone and hold their hand. Ask a resident about their earlier life (Mary, my friend from childhood, was a chef at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City!). Take fingernail polish and paint some fingernails. Take an easy craft for the residents to make.

I’m pretty sure you will quickly realize that as you bless others, you too will be blessed.

Read the rest of this series here.

Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love Your Neighbor- Forgiveness

Today I share with you a guest post from my friend JD at Compassion Can. Before you read this I ask that you take a moment to take a deep breath, ready your heart, and slow down enough to really read these words. JD is an amazing writer, friend, lover of Jesus, justice fighter, and has been an incredible inspiration to me. As you read JD's testimony I ask that you let these words sink in deep; deep enough to change you.

I don’t know if it should have been more impossible to love him, or to forgive him.  No one could have blamed me for not being able to do either – out of anyone in this world, I was the one who had the most reason to harbour hatred and unforgiveness towards this man. 

I was four years old when my innocence was shattered.  I remember the day as though it was yesterday, the day someone came into my room and raped me for the first time.  The abuse continued, typically daily and increasing in severity, until October of 1993 – I was 18. 

This man was no stranger to me.  I had been raised to trust him – his role was to protect me from harm.  Instead, he brought calamity to my life and hurt me in unspeakable ways. 

This man was my father. 

In 1993, after finally breaking free from sexual slavery, I gave the broken pieces of my life over to God and begged Him to redeem my life for something good.  Only He could make me feel whole again, only He could restore what was lost.  To this day, I’ve only ever told one person the depths of depravity I’ve survived, there are few able and willing to hear it.

Freedom was sweet, but there would always be a missing piece.  I would not have peace until I knew that my father also had peace.  As brutal as it was to be in my shoes – imagine the brutality of living with such a darkness choking life out of his heart?  Against all that ever made sense, my heart ached for his life. 

I don’t deserve Jesus’ grace, mercy, forgiveness, even His love – as dirty as I was, broken, shamed, didn’t God reach down and pluck me from the filth He found me in?  I knew He longed to do the same for my earthly father.  My father was His child too.

  

A little over four years ago, in the summer of 2008, I was working in the yard when an unfamiliar truck pulled into the driveway. When I realized that it was my father, I fought back the flood of emotional turmoil until I felt I could breathe again.  I hadn’t seen him in a long, long time.  What did he want? Why was he here? 

After years of horrific abuse at the hands of this man, my father, I had every reason to be cautious, guarded. Who I was in Christ, though, gave me the strength to step forward and greet him. Our strength is not our own. It is merely borrowed from God, given freely when we seek it.

He saw that I had cut down some trees and had a large pile of branches to be hauled away, so he offered to load them up in his truck for me. I tentatively accepted. I've learned to be careful when he offers something.  Invisible strings sometimes have the steepest price. 

Once the branches were loaded and he climbed back into the truck cab, preparing to leave, I stood closer to the door to say goodbye to my father. My father, a normally very strict, harsh, rigid man, a ruthless man, the same man who had done unspeakable things to me as a child, was sitting in the truck with his shoulders slumped, his hands folded meekly in his lap, his head down. He couldn't speak.

When he finally looked up, he had tears in his eyes, and he was choking back the raw emotions.

I had never seen him cry.

His voice broke and crackled as his message to me stumbled out with rare and heartbreaking honesty. He said that in the last few months, his health, his impending retirement, his own journey, had led him to take a long, hard look at his life... especially what he had done to me. Sobs wracked his body as he said that he knew he had no right to ask, no right to expect it, but that he wanted to humbly ask for my forgiveness, for everything he had done, for not only having failed to protect me, but having instead brought me in harm's way.

He explained that not a day had gone by in the last few years when he had not thought about his actions and their consequences, not only for him, but for me. He said that his past haunted him everywhere he went. The world had no mercy for people like him. He was not asking for pity, he just wanted to let me know that he was no longer hiding behind the dark, cowardly cloak of denial. He admitted that while he knew the hell he faced, and could only imagine the personal hell he had created for me, and that he was truly sorry. He looked me in the eyes, crying, shaking, and said "Je m'excuse, je ne peut pas te dire comment je m'excuse... plus que tu pourrais imaginer. Je te demande pardon... je te demande pardon" (I'm sorry... I can't tell you how sorry I am... more than you can imagine. I am asking for your forgiveness. I am asking for your forgiveness.)

70x7.

There was no hesitation... I reached my hand out to him, placed it on his shoulder, and with tears in my eyes, felt an outpouring of compassion for this broken man, this man who had never found peace, but sought it so desperately that he had come to me to find it.

Me. This man, who had done everything imaginable to rob me of my peace, came seeking any ounce of peace that I could spare for him.

I gave him the most radical, liberal and undeserved gift, the only thing I had left to give to this man... my genuine, heartfelt, honest forgiveness.

God gives to us without sparing, He fills us to overflowing with His mercy, His grace, His love, His forgiveness... and His peace.  Who are we not to share from this abundance, from the gifts bought and paid with His blood?

Christ died for our sins... Whatever we do for the least of these, we do it for Christ... but the beauty of it, was that this was not only for Christ, but for both of us.

I told him that I had already forgiven him long ago, that I had found peace through Christ, and that I wanted nothing more than for him to find that peace too, that peace that could only come from God. I told him to seek it, and in the process, not to forget to forgive himself too.

There are no words to describe the way those words affected him that day. I stood by him as I shared God's mercy and grace with him for the first time in my life, for the first time in his. God was there.

Forgiveness is a precious, powerful gift. It is often not only for the one being forgiven, but for the one forgiving. Although I had survived to that point, from that point forward, I stopped surviving, and started living.

The past no longer weighs me down. 

“Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? Till seven times? Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.” Matthew 18:21-22

Read the rest of this series here. 

Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love Your Neighbor- Community

I must be honest, as I sit to write this post, I am a little overwhelmed and unsure where to start.

This is because I see so much need here, at home, in our own communities. But I also see so many ways that we can take action in loving our neighbors in our own cities, towns, and neighborhoods.

If you missed it, I wrote a guest post over at Peace It All Together a couple weeks ago about being intentional. If you missed it you can read it here: Be Intentional. This post may help explain why serving in my own community is so important to me, and why helping those in need in my own neighborhoods is not on option. Because I have lived much of my life in a place where I often depended on my neighbors for the basics, I know what it is like to go without, and I know what a blessing it is when others go out of their way to give.

Personally, I have a great passion for my own community, and a great desire to be the hands and feet of Christ here, where God has me. I hope that you feel the same, and if not, that you would pray for this desire to love your actual neighbors.

As I share ways to get involved in your communities, please keep in mind that this is just a list to spark ideas and hopefully motivate some action. There are many more ways to serve and many more organizations to get involved with. Issues range from place to place. Most of these ways to serve target issues that plague my own community, such as gangs, poverty, teen pregnancy, and homelessness. If you have ideas or organizations you would like to share, please feel free to do so!

Where to Serve:
*Check out your local Rescue Mission and ask when they have the highest need for volunteers. Invest time, not just on the holidays.
*See if Youth for Christ has an office in your area. YFC is best known for their on-campus ministry, but they have many programs you may not know about, including urban outreach, juvenile hall ministry, and discipleship and training groups for teen moms.
*Get your hands dirty with Habitat for Humanity.
*Get involved with a local school as a classroom aid or an after school tutor. Many places also have ministries that partner churches and schools, such as Every Neighborhood Partnership.
*Become a mentor!
*Make regular visits to a local nursing or convalescent home. When visiting my own grandparents in these places, I have come to realize that there are many people here who are overlooked, forgotten, and would love nothing more than conversation and a listening ear. And honestly, there is no better place in the world to absorb some wisdom!

Being Intentional in Every Day Living:
*Do prayer walks around your own neighborhood or around an area or school that God has placed on your heart to serve. This often times provides opportunity for conversation and building relationships.
*Prepare "goodie bags" to have on hand for when you meet a homeless person. They can include items like a toothbrush and toothpaste, soap, razors, deoderant, as well as some personal touches such as a card with a verse, a gift card for a fast food restaurant, and a Bible or other reading materials. Throughout the year I keep yarn in my car, and in moments of down time I will crochet scarves to include in the goodie bags for this time of year.
*Create meal and child care sign-ups for families in your community in times that they may need some extra support, such as illness or surgery, a new birth,  adoption, or a loss of a job.
*Keep important numbers in your phone, such as the local rescue mission (incase you are in a situation where you are unsure how to act, such as the day I met Greg), the local police department, and the National Human Trafficking Hotline (1-888-373-7888).
*Focus on building real relationships and growing respect and love for eachother, creating a give and take that benefits everyone.

As I end, I would like to say that many of the ways we are able to love our neighbors do not feel comfortable, and often times do not feel safe. But that's okay, because Christ never commanded us to be either of those things.

To read the rest of this series, click here.

Simple Acts of Kindess: Tangible Ways to Love your Neighbor- Family

Family. They are part of who we are and where we come from. The people in our families are a powerful shaping factor in what we become, the values we hold, and what we believe.

Family is where most of us learn what love looks like.

For me personally, the people in my family can be the easiest to love and the hardest to love.

We have gone through life together, through very hard times and very good times, creating a bond of love that can't be broken.

Yet, when I am having a bad day, they are the first ones I lash out at. When I am busy and overwhelmed with life, they are often the ones I neglect.

But if I want to be an example of Christ, I need to be an example in how I love my family, and how I treat my family. I would hope that people from the outside looking in can recognize that our foundation is a Greater Love.

As Sybil shared with us this week, LISTENING is a very good first step in knowing your family's needs, hurts and passions so you can love your family better.

I want to challenge us all to go beyond our defined family responsibilities, and take those extra steps, those simple acts of kindess, to be an example of love in our homes and among our families.

Here are a few simple ways to get started:

Do something helpful, just because:
*Do somone else's designated chore(s), especially the ones they dislike the most.
*Fill their car up with gas.
*Wash their car.
*Wake up early and make a big family breakfast (and then clean up the mess :).
*Help out an elderly family member by doing big tasks, such as washing their windows and blinds or organizing closets. My grandma use to love it when I would come over polish her cabinents with lemon oil. More ideas include taking them to run errands, grocery shopping with them or for them, and just spending quality unrushed time with together.

Do something thoughtful, just because:
*Cook a different family member's favorite meal each week.
*Get up early to start a pot of coffee.
*Write a letter or send a card (especially for those of you, like me, whose family is far away).
*Ask specific questions, about specific issues going on in their lives (this goes back to the listening!)
*Be aware of other's love languages, and love with them!
*Leave encouraging notes or scriptures- on the bathroom mirror, in lunch boxes, on their car windshield while they are at work, or make encouragement mailboxes for each member of the family to "mail"  and recieve notes.
*Be aware and sensitive of family members who may be lonely or who are going through hard stages in life. Possibly a great aunt who recently lost her husband or a cousin going through a divorce. Consider ways you can include them in family events or give them extra support in whatever they are going through.
*Show an interest in their hobbies and passions.
*Remember, Simple Things can make a big difference!

Spend time together:
*Be intentional in setting aside time. Make it a priority. If you are seperated by distance, make phone or skype dates each week.
*Let family members take turns choosing activities to do together.
*Spend time volunteering together, growing and strengthening values of love, kindness, and generosity.
*Pray together.
*Cook together.
*Eat meals together.
*Set aside time after breakfast or before bedtime to do a short devotional together.
*Start a family project together- redecorate a room, plant a garden, scrapbook, build something, or make Christmas cards for some very deserving kids.

These are just a few thoughts to get you started. Please share your ideas!


I must close this post with this note. Many families, possibly even your own, do not have a foundation of a Greater Love. Families are not always the supporting and strengthening units that God intended them to be. Many homes are broken, and I come from one of them. Sadly, many homes are not safe places, but rather, are places of hurt and abuse. I hope you will join me on Saturday, as my friend JD shares with us from her very personal experiences, how to love in these kinds of family situations.

To read the rest of this series, click here. 

Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love your Neighbor- Loving Your Family

Today Sybil from Peace It All Together shares how loving our neighbors begins at home.  

Most days I feel if my heart is somewhere else. I used to love my work. It was my passion. My calling. While I still enjoy what I do, the students I serve, and the people I work with, I feel like there is more. My heart longs to bring joy to the lost, to those who don't know the healing power of Jesus Christ, whether it's because they don't know him at all or because they have been separated from him by sin or hurt or simply, life.

Wikipedia defines missionary as "a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service" and "one who is to witness across cultures."

  I have never wanted to be a missionary. Many things about that title scared me. Then, after a mission trip to Mexico in high school - which I'm sure had some good points, although I struggle to remember any - I have felt completely certain that foreign missions weren't for me. But, lately I've been thinking more about this word...missionary. I don't completely agree with the definition from Wikipedia. Shouldn't someone who wants to bring God's love to others, not just in a foreign country or across cultures, but to their own cities, neighborhoods and even their own homes be considered a missionary?   Another reason that I never considered a career in missions is that I have always liked being at home. As a child, and even as a teenager, I was reluctant to spend the night at a friend's house or be away from home for long periods of time. So, I couldn't imagine spending any amount of time in a foreign country, adjusting to a different culture, language, lifestyle. I'm still a home body and would prefer to bring people to me than to go to them. Hmmm. Home. I can be a missionary there, right?    When I first began thinking about this, I was stumped. I wasn't certain what I could do, in addition to the typical mommy, wife stuff, to show God's love to my family. Then, I had a thought. My perception is that I've been doing the "neighbor" thing pretty well lately, or rather, God has been working through me to reach those outside my home. So, how have I been loving my neighbors, my friends, those people I have been called to minister to?  I started with listening. Listening to God and to people. Really paying attention to what they are saying. What I've found is that, even though people may not specifically state, "I need ____," through conversation, they often speak about their needs, their hurts, their passions. So, I decided my first step in showing more of God's love to my family would be to listen to them. Through listening better and more to my family, I hope to be able to meet their needs, comfort their hurts and feed their passions.
One thing that my daughters are passionate about is jokes. You know, those corny kid jokes, like "How do bees get to school?" "On a school buzzzz." Hehehe. They love those. So, when I saw these free printable jokes on Pinterest, I printed and laminated them immediately. The first day I put them in their lunch boxes, as a surprise, I was barely in the door, at the end of the day, before they were telling me how much they loved the jokes. They have lunch everyday. Sometimes, from home. From now on, there will be a little something extra in there to make them smile.

I want my passion to be people. I'm more convinced now than ever before, that it needs to start at home.

 

Sybil fills many different roles in life...mother, wife, sister, daughter, friend. A School Psychologist, by profession and a Christian, by faith. But, she has come to realize that there is more to life than roles and titles. It is how you live your life that matters most! She believes that everybody has a story to tell. She tells her story at Peace it All Together. 

   

To read the rest of this series, click here. 

Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love your Neighbor

And before everything, have a severe love for each other,

for love covers a multitude of sins. - 1 Peter 4:8

I met Greg on a Saturday. My friend Kelley and I had just shared a meal, and as we walked out of the restaurant we had to wait in line, as there was some congestion in the doorway.

As we got closer to the door, we saw a man lying on the pavement. His legs sprawled across one half of the double doors, his torso across the other. We watched as several people coming in stepped over the man, and waited patiently for those in front of us to exit the same way.

When we reached him I knelt to talk to him, and it was suddenly clear that he was not drunk, he was not being dramatic to seek attention. He was seriously ill. He had lost control of his bodily functions, and his clothes were soiled. He was shaking uncontrollably and was unable to move.

We were able to feed him and get him to a warm place. Greg tried to converse with us, but his words were murmured and took great effort. We comprehended few of them, but the one that we were able to understand clearly was cancer, cancer, cancer.

We offered to take him to a hospital or a shelter, but he adamantly refused. After prayer and broken conversation he insisted there was nothing more that we could do, so we left him.

For the next several weeks I searched for Greg, but never found him. Several months later, as I watched my grandmother's body become ravaged by cancer, I witnessed in her the same physical signs that I saw in Greg the days and hours leading to her death. And I can't help but wonder, did we leave Greg alone to die? I wondered if, even against his wishes, I should have done more.

I have many more stories like this, and I am sure you have them too...those moments in life where  you wish you could turn back time and do more.

I think that most of us have a sincere desire to be the hands of feet of Christ in situations like these, and in our everyday lives.

I know I want to be love to those around me, but busyness, discomfort, and being overwhelmed by the amount of hurt in this world often stand in my way.

This week I will be starting a series titled Simple Acts of Kindness: Tangible Ways to Love your Neighbor.

Myself along with several guests will be sharing ideas, stories, and inspirations in loving better, through simple acts.

Simple doesn't mean convenient, comfortable, and safe.

Simple means straightforward, transparent, and uncomplicated.

My goal is that through this series we will gain more confidence that we are able to do more, we are able to love better, and that we will be more intentional in doing so.

I hope you will join me on this journey.