Strength to Live Beautifully

"Speaking beautifully is little to the purpose unless one lives beautifully."

My heart still weighs heavy for Haiti. In a world of i-phones and CNN and instant updates, between facebook and twitter and supersizing our french fries and adding fancy new rims to our expensive cars, we have forgotten.

We have forgotten because we can't remember something we have never known.

Most of us don't know what it is like to wake up with a deep hunger in our bellies and not be able to reach for a pop tart. We complain that there's nothing left in our pantry when we are only lacking the Oreos or Ritz.

A blog I adore (livesayhaiti.blogspot.com) recently decided their family was going to CLEAN OUT the pantry before going to the grocery store, really clean it out...and I mean one child would eat beans and one would eat something totally different. There would be no uniformity to the meal and as I read this adventure this family went through, my eyes were opened to the many times I complain, "I just don't have anything to eat." It is an incredulous statement on my part when I know there is plenty for me to eat adorning my pantry.

This family that I speak of has been a constant source of encouragement to me as I have read through stories about their life in Haiti- they abandoned the luxuries of the United States and have chosen to raise their family in a place most would turn up their noses at and declare "unsafe, dirty, unfit for a family, scary, impoverished, etc." Yet, this family lives beautifully. In my opinion, they live more beautifully than most anybody I know...and I don't even know them personally. Sure, I know they aren't perfect, but I know that if I could be living my life the way they do, my heart would be filled to the brim with joy. I cannot wait to someday visit Haiti, maybe live there...meet my sponsor child who lives there...her name is Souvenir. I want to feed the hungry, help the sick, hold orphans. But I don't want to do it for a short time. I want that to be my life...may I be marked up, beaten up, bruised, get sick, get tired and worn out for the calling God has put on my life.

For all those times I haven't felt loved, beautiful...the times I have felt abandoned and like no one in the world would hold me close, I know that God whispers into my ear, "Daughter. I am here, I am holding you...live beautifully."

So I pray that I would have the strength to be brave and live beautifully, even in the times that I don't have the desire to. We have been blessed beyond all measure and I feel it's time we start living like that.