Does your heart break when you see this, like mine does?My life was marked from the beginning that I would serve Jesus Christ at a higher price than a lot of people. It wasn't through the circumstances that I grew up in, although they weren't easy - my story began with the first scar of melanoma that marked my body. I don't make it a secret that my struggle with skin cancer has been a battle I've fought half of my life. And I thank God that he put this in my path because it is through this battle I have found myself, I've found my relationship with God, and I've found what I want to do.
I want to serve.
When my Dad went on a cruise to the Dominican, he told me about how he saw Haitian children selling small trinkets in the market and looking at the American tourists with plaintive eyes and swollen bellies, begging them to buy what meager wares they had to sell for food. He told me how hard it was to see these children, knowing what we have in America and what they don't in Haiti.
My dad didn't do anything wrong, but when he and everyone else comes back from vacation, like most, they settle back into their daily patterns and those swollen bellies and heartbroken eyes fade into the background of the vacation pictures. Hearing that story, I swore to myself that one day I would go and serve the people of Haiti.
This was years before the earthquake that recently devastated the country of Haiti. That earthquake has only intensified my desire to serve, to leave my life in the US behind and go and be one of them, living only wiht the necessities as they try to put their lives back together again. South Africa has also been another calling of mine, to go and do the same there with the AIDS epidemic.
One day I'll go. And with the start of 2010, my public (however "public" this blog really is) resolution is simple. I'm going to put my time & energy where my mouth is.
I will run in a 5k. I will serve in a mission overseas in a ravaged and poor country, binding up the brokenhearted and the broken in the name of my Lord, Jesus Christ. I will focus my life on serving others. I will get a tattoo with my little sister, one that means something to both of us.
I will do these things, and so help me if I don't. I'm also going to continue this fight against melanoma. It hasn't won yet, and God-willing, it won't. I refuse to give up, to give in to the fear of the next biopsy result, the next time I see the scheduling office of my dermatologist calling to tell me the bad news and my stomach drops. I am a daughter of Jesus Christ, and for some reason, I have such peace in knowing that melanoma won't be how he calls me home. He's not done wiht me here on this earth yet, and in 2010, I'm going to take advantage of the time I have on this earth to serve His people.
My little sister is my inspiration in so many ways, and hearing her as she talks about her hopes and dreams for her life after college has me remembering that I'm still young and I have a lot of time left in my own life to do what I want to do. One of my favorite quotes is "It's never too late to be what you might have once been." Don't ever give up on any dream, thinking its too late.
It's never too late to do what you want to do. The Romans had it right when they said "Carpe Diem!" Seize the day! Don't let a moment pass without realizing how blessed you are to live it.
Parting thought:
We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we cary yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it - John Newton
Talk soon.
*Image taken from MSNBC*
