Happy birthday Irene...

So very, very much to be said tonight, so few words.

I went hunting for the passage the speaker was talking about tonight, its in 1 John 3. Looked a little broader in this chapter by 'accident' and it's hit home pretty deeply, and beautifully...

1 John 3:11 'This is the message you heard from the beginning: We should love one another.'

1 John 3:17-20 '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. This then is how we know that we belong to the truth, and how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.'

I suppose tonight my heart condemned me a little.

To fill you guys in, it was a really moving service at XS tonight, guy from compassion spoke to us about goodness and how true goodness is using the unique thing that God made you brilliant at, to make a difference in a world where three quarters of the worlds food is eaten by one quarter of its population, and the amount that quarter wastes is more than the other three quarters actually eat. In this world where 25,000 children under the age of five will dive of starvation and preventable disease tonight, as I sleep in my warm cosy bed. And as I get up tomorrow morning, whinging about umpiring netball in the cold, I'll earn in an hours easy work what they would earn and live on in a week and a half.

We think we are stuck in a rutt? As we complain about school, work, issues with our relationships etc, feeling that we are walking the same road again and again, going over the same cycles, the cycles of poverty perpetuate too. Twenty five thousand. Thats twice the adelaide entertainment centre. Every. Single. Day. One child every three seconds. Watch a clock. Count.

Personally, I can't do it because it's simply too painful. I'll start crying within a minute of starting. So maybe that's a good challenge for you, find an analogue clock and count for a bit. one, two, three. Make a list of people you know, anyone who matters to you, and watch a clock. Every three seconds, cross one off. See how many people you loved would have died in two or three minutes.

Every time I hear a sermon like that, or watch the videos, I can't help but cry. I prayed in a song once, asking God to 'break my heart for what breaks yours' and sometimes I wish I hadn't. But I know that this pain that sometimes overwhelms me, to the point where I cry myself to sleep, it will motivate me to use the gifts God has given me. Holy discontent style.

So yeah, I cried a lot tonight haha, that just kinda seems to happen to me, I'm an emotional person I guess. The thing was, I got home and my sister said I had a letter from compassion. I didn't leap with joy or anything, because often they are appeals for more money, which as much as I would love to give it to them, I truly and sadly do not have. But tonight was one of those magic nights, a letter from Sharon, my sponsor child in Uganda.

And the most special thing about it? She signed her name herself, for the first time ever. She's five, turning six in february and she makes my heart sing. Sponsoring her is one of the most active things I can actually do in the world right now, that and advocacy and prayer, of course.

But yeah, then I got home and found that verse and it was like 'woah, awesome'.

So yet again, I lay my big fat questions of 'OHMYGOODNESSBLARGHWHATAMIGOINGTODOWITHMYLIIIFEEEEE' at the foot of the cross and leave them there. Because really, what am I going to do with those questions anyway? Nothing useful, that's for sure.

So even though I feel much better, and very hopeful about God's plans for my life, I have to remember that the pain of the world is still there...

So, to todays twenty five thousand...
I am so, so sorry. I wish I knew your names...