It's been three months since I've last blogged (blogged sounds weird). I feel like my world is so much different since the last I blogged. The two biggest things are that we moved into our home, (yay!) and I got a job (another yay!) Truly, God has been so faithful to us. Yes, it's been hard...really hard at times, to be honest. But He is faithfully faithful :)
I work at a social services organization that serves children. We have many different services, like adoption, foster care, family and marriage services/workshops, counseling of many sorts, and more. I've been learning what it looks like to love our clients, despite how they got into their situation. I've been learning what it looks like to love the my coworkers, who are ALL women, except 3 men. I know, poor guys! These two groups of people make for constant DRAMA in the workplace.
The people that we serve are most often not the most pleasant people to work with. Let me briefly tell you about some of our clients' lives. These are their stories.
Four children, between 10 and 18 months old, taken out of their home because their parents were making meth in their home.
A young woman who is due to give birth in about 2 weeks. She was homeless and was a prostitute. She is adament about having the "John" be at the birth and about herself raising the baby.
A preschooler who doesn't remember his mom and says he doesn't have a dad. His "mother" is his foster mom, who has given up on him because of his destructive behaviors, that are him just pleading for attention.
A teen who was adopted several years ago and has been in all sorts of counseling ever since. Her adoptive parents have abused her. She is chronically depressed and is self-mutilating.
The clients themselves are not the ones that I am struggling with loving. It's the people who refuse to help them and instead make the problem worse.
Though I had to physically restrain the preschool the other day, I know that he knows that I'm doing therapy with him because I care. It's the foster mother that I want to slap and say, "You are setting up a preschooler for desaster, that will be a theme for the rest of his life!"
I want to scream, "Stop being children, and act like adults. You CHOSE to adopt this child. Own up to it and be a parent," to the adoptive parents of the teen.
I want to slap the parents of the four children and say, "It's not okay that your 10 year old daughter has to take care of her younger siblings, all because of your choices. It's your fault that she doesn't have a childhood."
And I want MUCH worse to the "John" of the former prostitute (Lord, forgive me.)
I come home emotionally and physically exhausted from this job almost everyday. How am I supposed to love these people while still being a wife? How am I supposed to give ALL of me, to everything in my life? I've been desperately crying out to God for about two months now. He gives me relief every once in a while. I can actually physically feel Him holding me. Maybe that's weird to some of you, which is okay. Being in the arms of someone who can protect me and is stronger than me is what makes me feel the most secure, and I think that God knows this, so He holds me.
So for this post, I'm in the midst of figuring out what God is telling me. Sometimes His answers are immediately clear and concise. Sometimes, like now...not so much.
Here's to seeking Him through it all,
Ashley
Friday, May 6, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Patient
I've been trying to think of a good topic to start my blog off with and it didn't take me very long at all to figure out what I wanted to write about. I wanted to write about something that I'm really passionate about and I know a good bit about, in hopes of gaining confidence to write more and to get people interested and perhaps even respond. But the problem is that I get so emotional when I think about it. Emotions and I have kind of a love-hate relationship. Well, I should say that the expression of emotions. They always creep up on me and are kind of inevitable. But one emotion that I am most ashamed to show is anger. And with me trying to learn how to love well, anger kind of gets in the way.
Anger crept up in me about a week ago after reading several articles and watching a couple of videos, all having to do with human trafficking. The first, was an article about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the Sudan ravaging villages of innocent people, slaying people with machetes, and taking many villagers with them. You can find the article here.
The other was about a recent sting operation from Live Action, a pro-life student led organization, that went into several Planned Parenthood locations in January 2011, posing as a pimp and prostitute. They told the Planned Parenthood personnel that they were involved in sex work with girls as young as 14 years old. You can find one of the articles, which has one of the videos here.
Now, if you know me even just a little, you probably know that I'm passionate about trafficking of persons, am pretty educated in it, and am an advocate for a local organization in Atlanta that is fighting this evil. I know that this is going on each and everyday, in our backyards and across the globe. For some reason though, these stories just grabbed me and I was just so ANGRY. As I was thinking about these cases, I had to take a step back and pray and remember that I have set a goal for myself: learning to love well everyday. I prayed, "God, how do I love well on every level on this particular issue?" As God and I were talking, I realized that I was more angry than I thought and I was angry at more than the people that are actually, physically committing this evil. I was angry about a lot of things:
1) Obviously the people that let this happen. The Planned Parenthood personnel, the LRA, the pimps, traffickers, etc.
2) The people that know about this and don't care.
3) The people who know about this and care, but don't do a thing about it.
4) The media...the Planned Parenthood sting made the front page of the Fox News website but it got less than 5 minutes of air time.
5) Myself
6) God
After realizing all six of these, I was completely overwhelmed. "Great", I thought. "How am I going to deal with this? Angry at God? That's just wrong. Angry at myself? I'm too selfish to be mad at myself." After a looooottttt of praying and crying (side note: being on the eliptical, reading the Bible, and crying all at the same time really get your heart going), God calmed me within just a few minutes and it was incredible. If you've ever had this peace overcome you that can only be from heaven, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I realized that being angry in itself is actually not a bad thing. God himself is angry about a few things. Of course, given that He IS GOD, and I am not, I'm not saying that my anger is justified because God is angry. My point is that Christ wants us to be angry about the same things that He is angry about. When the oppressed are pushed down, justice is denied, and power is sought by those who will only use it for evil, we should be angry. The key part of our anger that makes it Christ-like, is that we take that anger and make it about LOVING those that anger us. This is Christ living in us. Christ living in us is what we were made for. We were made to proclaim His glory to all of the nations.
Okay. Got that. I actually learned this about a year and half ago while writing my thesis in college, which was about helping the oppressed. Thanks for the refresher, God :)
How do I love those that anger me? Christ tells us that we must "be angry and yet do not sin...let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear...let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:25-32) So I need to forgive, speak truth but only so that brings grace to those that I am talking to. Sounds simple enough... :-/
I always knew God had a plan for my life, ever since I can remember. The point in which God revealed to me a very specific plan was just about 7 years ago. I'm not going to get into the details right now because this post is already really long, but the truly defining moment was when I lived in India for 3 months. Here, is where the issue of human trafficking became more than just stories to me. Here is where God told me that I was going to do something to do with kids and actually love it. Here is where God pulled me completely out of my comfort zone and pushed me and stretched my beliefs and faith farther than I ever believed that I could withstand. After those 3 months, the words "human trafficking" means this to me:
Human trafficking are real people that I've met, that I've held, hugged, played endless clapping games with, sang with.... and kids that I would cry myself to sleep thinking about.
It makes me angry to know that there are real people out there that take advantage of families, buy their children to use them as they please. It makes me angry that real people actually buy children to do what they please with them. It angers me that people know full well that this is happening and actually aide in the pimp's pursuit to give abortions to 14 year old girls and don't report it to the authorities. It angers me that I have friends who know about this and don't want to know more about it or what to do about it because it saddens them. It makes me angry that a rebel army strips thousands of children of their innocence and childhood, make them carry a rifle and slaughter people.
You know what prevails even above this atrocity? CHRIST, whose love goes out to even those perpetrators.
This turned out to be much longer than I expected, so I'll come back to this later. Thank the Lord that we can REST IN HIM. He is faithful to His children's prayers! He is so patient with me as I journey through learning how to love well. Praise Him.
Anger crept up in me about a week ago after reading several articles and watching a couple of videos, all having to do with human trafficking. The first, was an article about the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in the Sudan ravaging villages of innocent people, slaying people with machetes, and taking many villagers with them. You can find the article here.
The other was about a recent sting operation from Live Action, a pro-life student led organization, that went into several Planned Parenthood locations in January 2011, posing as a pimp and prostitute. They told the Planned Parenthood personnel that they were involved in sex work with girls as young as 14 years old. You can find one of the articles, which has one of the videos here.
Now, if you know me even just a little, you probably know that I'm passionate about trafficking of persons, am pretty educated in it, and am an advocate for a local organization in Atlanta that is fighting this evil. I know that this is going on each and everyday, in our backyards and across the globe. For some reason though, these stories just grabbed me and I was just so ANGRY. As I was thinking about these cases, I had to take a step back and pray and remember that I have set a goal for myself: learning to love well everyday. I prayed, "God, how do I love well on every level on this particular issue?" As God and I were talking, I realized that I was more angry than I thought and I was angry at more than the people that are actually, physically committing this evil. I was angry about a lot of things:
1) Obviously the people that let this happen. The Planned Parenthood personnel, the LRA, the pimps, traffickers, etc.
2) The people that know about this and don't care.
3) The people who know about this and care, but don't do a thing about it.
4) The media...the Planned Parenthood sting made the front page of the Fox News website but it got less than 5 minutes of air time.
5) Myself
6) God
After realizing all six of these, I was completely overwhelmed. "Great", I thought. "How am I going to deal with this? Angry at God? That's just wrong. Angry at myself? I'm too selfish to be mad at myself." After a looooottttt of praying and crying (side note: being on the eliptical, reading the Bible, and crying all at the same time really get your heart going), God calmed me within just a few minutes and it was incredible. If you've ever had this peace overcome you that can only be from heaven, you know exactly what I'm talking about. I realized that being angry in itself is actually not a bad thing. God himself is angry about a few things. Of course, given that He IS GOD, and I am not, I'm not saying that my anger is justified because God is angry. My point is that Christ wants us to be angry about the same things that He is angry about. When the oppressed are pushed down, justice is denied, and power is sought by those who will only use it for evil, we should be angry. The key part of our anger that makes it Christ-like, is that we take that anger and make it about LOVING those that anger us. This is Christ living in us. Christ living in us is what we were made for. We were made to proclaim His glory to all of the nations.
Okay. Got that. I actually learned this about a year and half ago while writing my thesis in college, which was about helping the oppressed. Thanks for the refresher, God :)
How do I love those that anger me? Christ tells us that we must "be angry and yet do not sin...let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear...let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you." (Ephesians 4:25-32) So I need to forgive, speak truth but only so that brings grace to those that I am talking to. Sounds simple enough... :-/
I always knew God had a plan for my life, ever since I can remember. The point in which God revealed to me a very specific plan was just about 7 years ago. I'm not going to get into the details right now because this post is already really long, but the truly defining moment was when I lived in India for 3 months. Here, is where the issue of human trafficking became more than just stories to me. Here is where God told me that I was going to do something to do with kids and actually love it. Here is where God pulled me completely out of my comfort zone and pushed me and stretched my beliefs and faith farther than I ever believed that I could withstand. After those 3 months, the words "human trafficking" means this to me:
It makes me angry to know that there are real people out there that take advantage of families, buy their children to use them as they please. It makes me angry that real people actually buy children to do what they please with them. It angers me that people know full well that this is happening and actually aide in the pimp's pursuit to give abortions to 14 year old girls and don't report it to the authorities. It angers me that I have friends who know about this and don't want to know more about it or what to do about it because it saddens them. It makes me angry that a rebel army strips thousands of children of their innocence and childhood, make them carry a rifle and slaughter people.
You know what prevails even above this atrocity? CHRIST, whose love goes out to even those perpetrators.
This turned out to be much longer than I expected, so I'll come back to this later. Thank the Lord that we can REST IN HIM. He is faithful to His children's prayers! He is so patient with me as I journey through learning how to love well. Praise Him.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
So. I've finally made a blog!
After wanting to have a blog for a while now, I've finally made one. And I have to say...I'm pretty proud of myself. It's taken me so long for a lot reasons, which all pretty much boil down to me being a perfectionist and being extremely picky and worried about what other people will think of me. ("What if they laugh at my blog name? What if they think my profile is dumb? What if they don't like my background?") I know, it's ridiculous. After staring at the "Start Your Blog!" page for 3 days, I finally just wrote down what I wanted to write and what I wanted my focus to be. I want to love others. Not only love them, but LOVE them WELL.
So, that is my goal for this blog. I'm making a more deliberate choice to love others well. To show them that they matter. To show them they are valuable. To show them that they are worthy of being loved well.
I'll use this blog to share what I'm learning. Yes, I'll probably have some posts where I'm just writing about life, but I'll try my best to not be a whiny, self-absorbed teenager who ONLY whines about her life ;) But writing about life isn't bad. After all, isn't that what we're called to do anyway? Love through everyday life!
Praying that He will pour His love through me,
Ashley
P.S. Please comment! I want to know that you're out there reading. Even if you don't know me, please comment Tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you think, etc. It makes me want to blog more :)
So, that is my goal for this blog. I'm making a more deliberate choice to love others well. To show them that they matter. To show them they are valuable. To show them that they are worthy of being loved well.
I'll use this blog to share what I'm learning. Yes, I'll probably have some posts where I'm just writing about life, but I'll try my best to not be a whiny, self-absorbed teenager who ONLY whines about her life ;) But writing about life isn't bad. After all, isn't that what we're called to do anyway? Love through everyday life!
Praying that He will pour His love through me,
Ashley
P.S. Please comment! I want to know that you're out there reading. Even if you don't know me, please comment Tell me what you like, what you don't like, what you think, etc. It makes me want to blog more :)
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