to fight

WEDNESDAY, JULY 18, 2007

nothing worth having comes without some kind of a fight. we are fighting. life is worth fighting for. friendship is worth fighting for. justice. truth. hope. love is worth fighting for. a treasure is only a treasure because it's hard to find. we are on a journey to fight for the hearts and minds of the depressed and lonely young people of this country. a journey to fight for the church and the embarrassingly sad state that it is in now. a journey to fight for justice and righteousness to become precedent in this country. a journey to see the end of abortion; a legal procedure that is killing off the next generation. 

i am witness to the redeemed life of one norma mcorvey. she may be more well known as jane roe from roe vs. wade 1973....the case that gave legal permission to medical experts to remove live babies from their mother's wombs in the united states of america. jane roe (or norma mcorvey) has been saved by the blood of Jesus and her redeemed life is now spent fighting to overturn that decision. i met her. she hugged and kissed me and told me i was cute. she called me a survivor because i was born in 1981, when abortion was legal; is still legal now. i have at least 3 friends who really are survivors...their mother's were visited by the Lord or an angel while they were on the table at an abortion clinic. survivors. i am proud that this is a fight we get to participate in. to save lives. is it controversial? is it risky? do pro-lifers have a chance? yes. yes. yes. we put our hope in the Lord, not in man. only the Lord can overturn an injustice such as this. not politics. not the church. not boisterous and emotional protests. i stood outside George Tiller's abortion clinic labeled "Women's Health Services" and cried. 65,000 babies. i have no protest. i don't believe in yelling about it. i don't agree with the giant posters of dead babies. i just cry. the lonely chimney loomed atop the clinic, black with the ashes of 65,000 lives. i cried. my brothers and sisters. most were 7 and 8 months old in their mother's wombs. i cry. Lord help us. you are our only hope. resurrect my heart. save my nation. save my brothers and sisters. our minds, our marriages, our families, our friendships, our churches, our health, our rv generators, our youth, our babies. nothing worth having comes without some kind of fight. 

family

family is the center of a pinwheel. it can be blown in one of two directions, with a series of repercussions for each. one direction is that of destruction....the rise and fall of the family in America accounts for the majority of all crime, social and behavior issues, school drop outs, run-aways, drug and alcohol abuse, child and spousal abuse, and poverty. it all starts in the family unit.

the other direction this pinwheel is blown is one that is an excruciating fight. a fight for peace, a fight for real love. a fight for seeing and believeing that your family can and chooses to be advocates of each other. that they really and truely long to have peace and strength as a family unit. that no matter what, they choose to give each other the benefit of the doubt. choose to forgive. choose to lay down their pride when they've hurt another. choose to put their family ahead of themselves. that they would choose to fight......every waking moment of their life for this thing, this unit, this pinwheel we call family. established and rooted and founded by God.

"i love my family. so you can imagine my surprise. when i found out this world isn't made for families". -mark mathis

it's true. families....real, honest, fighting for truth and peace families are not welcome here. and they do not have an easy road on this planet. they are constantly stricken with fear, doubt, abuse, unforgiveness, bitterness, lies, manipulation and a passion for control and power over one another.......over their very own blood. i am grieved with family. i am grieved with a sense that no matter how hard one fights for victory and truth and love to triumph in ones family, that the battle just gets harder with every small, new victory. i believe that fighting for family is sometimes harder than being called to help refugees or fight in a war or go hungry. because no matter what happens: good or bad. those same people will always still be your family. no matter how far away you travel, or how many years pass between conversations......they will always still be your family.

i may sound discouraged.....which i'd be lying if i said i wasn't right now. but i do want to encourage people to fight for family. it's hard as hell. it's not a task for the weak-hearted. you have to be willing to sacrifice anything, everything to see the truth and have it be known in your family. i believe in family. i believe we are called to tend to our families. to love them. to give them everything we have, and more. not out of obligation, but out of a heart of love and humility. 

in a place where i feel defeated and hopeless right now (i swear my family is trying to give me a heart attack today), i claim the Lord's victory over my family. i acknowledge and confess our weaknesses and short-comings. our back-stabbings and manipulative ways. and i say that these are all just mechanisms to try and pull us apart, sent by the enemy himself. i refuse to believe that after all we have been through and seen the Lord redeem and rebuild in our family that it was all for nothing. i choose to believe that we love each other, value each other, and make one another a priority over anything else in this life. and above all i choose to love my family. i give up my feelings, my hurt, my theories, myself. if i have truely been wronged, may Jesus be my advocate. may Jesus stand and be my justice. i deserve nothing, apart from who He is in me. 

Lord, bless the families of this nation. the corrupt, distant, separated, crooked families in the church and in the streets. remind us of what you want family to look like. ignite your fire in our hearts to want to fight for our families. i ask for grace to be poured upon the families you have placed in my life. and give us hope. show us that because of who You are, that things will change. they have to. how else will the world know Your love, if christian families don't even love each other? 

i don't want my children to not know their grandparents, because we couldn't work things out. because we wouldn't humble ourselves. or we wouldn't forgive. or we just refused to be wrong. pride is a killer. let it die so that others don't have to suffer because of it. there is nothing in my opinion, no belief, no opinion, no action, no event, no hurt that is big enough to take the place of love and forgiveness in a family. it's just not worth it to me. life is just too short. and your family will never stop being your family. 

yeah, i grieve but i also believe in breakthrough.....come....

mysteriously romanced

i sit here in amazement of what actually just has happened to me.  we know not the ways of the Lord.  He is constantly surprising me and completely blowing my mind.  this moment....right now being the latest and most personally profound.

i just arrived home from a long teacher workday involving report cards and parent-teacher conferences.  8:30-5:00  it was especially difficult due to one conference which turned out to be Rocky part IV.  after it all, and having explained to my friend monika that we both just needed to go home, take hot baths and say words like "damn", i left the building.

home was dark but warm.  i let the dog out and unpacked my lap-top.  i was getting ready to draw my bath and read my book "Captivating", when i decided to check the mail. 

junk....junk.....junk.....bills....missing children.....wrong address......bills......long, brown tube.......addressed to me....my full name.....jessica marie mathis.  no return address.  weird.  sent from Fort Collins, CO on November 5th, 2005.     $0.60 postage.  i shake it.  no sound.  weird.  the ends were taped with masking tape.  i began un-taping one end.  then pulled out a ball of white tissue paper at the open end.  i looked in.  darkness.......i didn't see anything.  i turned it upside down.  nothing came out.  so weird.  i placed my hand in and felt something soft.  i grasped it between my fingers and pulled gently.  to my amazement out came a long, slender, shimmery blue feather.  what a mystery.  but wait......more!  i slid my fingers back into the brown tube and retrieved another!  this one long, thicker, brown and white.  again i pulled out another!  six long, beautiful feathers 4 blue, 2 brown and white lay on my table.  with the last pull of the last feather..............a note.  a small, yellow sticky note.

God Knows!

that was it.  what ensued thereafter is as follows:  weeping, laughing, weeping, staring at the mysterious brown tube, laughing, praising, weeping, so much laughing.....and now sharing this story.  my Jesus is so personal and so real and so in love.....with me!  if you know me.....then you are aware of the impact this event is having on me.  and for the record.  i don't know anyone in Fort Collins, CO. 

if this confuses/amazes/dumbfounds you, please do the following: 1. ask me about why this is so incredibly amazing.....2. check out psalm 91