What I want to tell you…

I know I don’t blog much. It isn’t that I don’t have a lot to say, it’s that I’m not always sure how to say it. The things I want to tell you about aren’t always easy, they aren’t simple stories they are ongoing sagas and I wish I had the gift of humor to make them light-hearted but sometimes that doesn’t come to me…so I’m just silent.

I want to tell you about J. who is a sweet girl in my bible study. Sometimes she is loud and crazy, sometimes she quiet and angry…mood swings, she calls them. I want to tell you about how her mother abandon her and chose to please herself rather than care for her kids, and how even though she’s returned J. cannot forgive her or trust her or love her. And the pain she feels is tremendous. And how we cannot make heads or tails of honoring your mother when your mother has locked you out of your house and forced you to sleep on the streets. I want to tell you about J., and the desperation in her voice when almost every week she says, “miss hannah, I’m going to come live with you”…and I have nothing to offer her. And how this week she said, “i don’t think God loves me.” And how I can understand that.

I want to tell you about D. who at age 6 was raped by his brother. D. is full of anger and hate, wouldn’t you? None of us at Mercy Street know what to do with D. I know that everytime I see him I just want to hold him in my arms and never let him go. I just want to turn off the world and say D. everything will be okay. D.’s been removed from school in handcuffs, suspended more times than I can count, he is unable to control himself and is now in the juvenille school system. I want you to see this boys smile…it’s rare, sort of like an eclipse but it happens from time to time.

I want to tell you about A., Z., H., N., J., J., and J., six boys and one girl all belonging to one mother…several different dads. I want to tell you how their mom is struggling to raise these kids, because that is not how God intended family to look. I want to tell you how these boys and this girl need a dad, a man they can look up to and trust. They need a mom who is wise and who works hard. They need structure and food, and clean clothes and boundaries. I want to tell you how difficult it is for kids like this to know The Father when they have no idea what a father is.

I want to tell you that there are over 3000 kids like this in West Dallas, kids full of anger, hate, sadness, confusion, and doubt. Everytime we help one we are reminded that there are so many more just like this one who need us.

But we are not alone here. I love these kids. They are on my mind often, in some form or another…but compared to God’s thoughts they are nothing…

How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! 
How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. 
When I awake, I am still with you.

I want to tell you how good our God is. How wonderful it is to serve a God that knows this place, that knows these kiddos and their family. How thankful I am that I can trust Him.

Like a Record baby!!!

Rockin

Caleb on the keyboard.

Rachel on the drums.

Aunt Hannah on guitar and vocals.

This is what happens when you’ve been playing Rock Band for the last 96 hours, (give or take a few).

Amazing Adventure

A friend of my sisters is on an amazing adventure in Iraq. She is an independent journalist living there and writing about what she sees. Please check out her blog.

Lent

I’ve given up red meat for Lent. It really isn’t very good for me, but boy do I love it. To me there is nothing better than a juicy burger or a nice big steak, but I do want to take care of this body that God has given me and so I figured I would start off with something doable…I can always have a turkey burger

I’ve been tagged, I’ve never been tagged before…

Sweetpea tagged me so here goes…

Four jobs I’ve had:

1) I worked at Baskin Robbins in High School with three of my closest friends. It was the best job because we had no supervisor and our location was never very busy. So it was mostly a hang out for our friends, a place to do homework and lots of free ice cream. I quit after three months when I realized I was gaining weight at an extremely fast rate. Free ice cream is not always a good thing.

2) I became a nanny after High School and moved to New York

3) Then moved to Dallas were I worked at PCPC for Skip Ryan

4) Now I work at Mercy Street in West Dallas.

4 movies I could watch over and over:

Roman Holiday, I want to take a Roman Holiday
Return to Me, i cry every time I watch this movie
Garden State, I completely identify with a girl in a helmet with a seizure disorder among other things in the movie.
Once it is available on DVD, Pride and Prejudice, no comment necessary.

places I’ve lived:

Phoenix, AZ
Scarsdale, NY
New York City, NY
Dallas, TX

tv shows I like to watch:

Lost
Will and Grace…It just makes me laugh
Scrubs…even more funny
anything crime scene/fighting related

website you visit daily:

The Daily Life of Sweetpea(s)
My blog

Places You’ve been on Vacation:

San Carlos, Mexico – As a kid my family would go every summer
Pretty much everywhere in the United States
The Bahamas
Canada

Notice that the only places I’ve been are places that allow you to travel without a passport. It is seriously sad that I do not have a passport. Something i hope to change this year, even if I never use it.

Favorite Foods:

Dark Chocolate
Italian
Love anything asian
Love the Indian
I am learning to appreciate Soul food and Mexican food (real authentic mexican food)

Where would I rather be right now:

I would rather be in the middle of nowhere in a cabin (that is fully functioning…bathroom, kitchen, etc.) that is surrounded by mountains and on a lake.

Painting Pictures of Egypt

I’ve been Painting Pictures of Egypt
leaving out what it lacks
cause the future seems so hard
and I wanna go back
but the places that use to fit me
cannot hold the things I’ve learned
and those roads were closed of to me, while my back was turned.
(From Sara Groves song, Painting Pictures of Egypt)

Sometimes I feel like I am so focused on the past that I cannot wrap my head around the future. It seems like I am always focused on one single moment of goodness. That one great quiet time, that one great conversation, one great date, or one great period when everyone in my life seemed to match to the life I wanted. The time I lived in Phoenix or when I lived in NY. Or when I felt like I’d figured out how to truly connect with God.

Why can’t I just survey who I am right now, and be content with me. Why do I always want to go back. I know that God is working in me right now to create who I will be next, just as he always has been. I’ve got to stop looking back and leaving out what it lacked, as the song says.

My first goodbye

I just said my first goodbye. Four of my favorite kids are moving away, and I don’t know where they will be. It may not be a forever goodbye, but the reality is that the way these folks move around it is hard to keep up.

It all started back in the March, we had this tough as nails kid, D’Montre, who was picking fights with everyone. We had a week long VBS type program during the week of Spring break and every day we had a problem with D’Montre. He is a cute kid but very troubled. He is 10 and walks around sucking his thumb and then trying to beat you down. We’ll I had enough and told him he couldn’t come back until he changed his attitude, that there could be no more fighting. The next morning I got to work early, and as I went to unlock the door D’Montre was standing there in the building. Someone had left a door unlocked and he was just waiting for us. It was about 7:00 am so I offered him some breakfast, this lead to some great conversation and then he helped me get ready for the day.

Things changed drastically between D’Montre and the rest of the kids after this. He didn’t seem so angry and he wasn’t so quick to fight. Then I met his sister Dre’Anna, she is a trip. The loudest, most antagonistic thing you’ve ever met. Every time I’d look at her she’d answer “What, I didn’t do anything.” But oh, how she captured my heart. From there I met their brother D’Autry and their sister Kennishia or Fat Fat as everyone calls her. They are all great kids, they have their issues but they are good.

My sister started mentoring Dre’Anna, I’ve never seen a child so proud to have a mentor. She would walk around school and Mercy Street saying, “Her sister is my mentor.” She called all the time, she even put Mary’s number on rocket dial.

Well now the family is splitting up. Cynthia their mother is moving to Oak Cliff and she has placed Kennishia with her dad, but doesn’t really know where that is, Dre is living with a cousin in Richardson, and the boys will be living with her. I don’t understand what is going on here, how a mother can just split up her kids like this.

I’m scared for all of these kids. I’m sad that I won’t see them after school and at MS. This goodbye is hard.

Sex in The City

I love this show. The relationships that are portrayed really speak to me. I have never watched it on HBO only TBS so I don’t think I could actually handle the real raunchy version…but TBS is pretty mild. I feel like each woman, Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, and Samanatha is version of me. I’ve got a little girl next door, fashion diva, shoe lovin, narcissistic, innocent, naive, tough bitch, calm, steady rock, that comprises each of the characters. I love their friendships, the way they are dealing with real issues that single woman deal with. It is tough being a single woman in this world where everything is meant for couples or for families.

I wish that I had friends like the ones that are represented on this show. I sometimes wish that I could recreate all the things that I love about it but in a good, really positive way that was sinless and edifying to the Lord. It is hard to find good Christian friends in this world. I have a few friends that I think are similar to this, but we are all so busy and in our stages of life. We don’t make enough time for each other, and I’m the biggest offender of all.

Why can’t life be as easy as on T.V., if only it was scripted by Darren Star.

My favorite line from an episode,

“The Fact is it’s hard to walk in a single woman’s shoes, that’s why we need really special ones every now and again to make the walk more fun.” – Carrie Bradshaw