Siempre Estare Contigo (Part 2)

I stand still at the edge of a crossroad. My mind filled with many thoughts as I look in every direction. My feet are firmly planted but are itching to step forward. I can see in the distance the faces of many. The further I look, the more I see. As I look lower to the ground, I am met by the eyes of a child. His face is dirty from dust and his nose filled with dry mucus. I am taken back by his stare at me. I start to move forward along this crossroad. To my right and left are busy streets with people everywhere. There are people selling everything from fruits to fake Nike shoes. My attention is driven towards this child. As I get closer I see that the only thing he is wearing is a ripped up t-shirt. His eyes continue to meet mine and with each step, while his emotions do not change. I focus deeper into his eyes and I am beaten down at the sadness distilled from his gaze. My heart begins to get heavy and the weight of the moment is bearing down on my body. I am within inches now and I am trembling. I cannot escape from his look. Never did he take his eyes off me. I finally make it to him and fall to my knees as the weight of the moment as finally collapsed my heart. I lift my head to meet eye to eye with this young child. What seemed like an eternity of gazing into each others was only but seconds until he wrapped his arms around my neck. At that moment, I felt the slightest smile upon his cheek. All he wanted was a hug. At the crossroad I stood not sure where my next step would be, while all along he stood there and waited for me to just love him. 




This is the story of thousand orphaned Haitian children.

I write this not as a way to stimulate your emotions, but to give you the visual of a hurting need to spread love to every nation, every country and every child. This moment was all too familiar while I was in Haiti. There wasn't enough time in the day to be able to love every child that came up to me. I had never felt a lackluster of love in one area as I did in those days I spent in the Haitian villages. Walking among the people, with kids running around everywhere, there was a deep sense that something was missing. Why did God send me? I asked myself that question day in and day out. I had not much to give, and was restrained to time. It hit me like a ton of bricks when God said, "Give what is not yours, but Mine: Hope and Love." Talk about an answer to my question!

From that point forward, all that mattered was showing the love of God to these children. It didn't matter if our program went well or happened at all, rather it was opportunity after opportunity of just loving on the people of Haiti, in particular, the children. When we were told that there are over 600,000 orphans in Haiti, at first I was very suspicious. But as we walked around the villages, around each corner was one child after the next. The further in we went, the more there were. My eyes were puzzled at where all these kids come from. I kept reminding myself that God has a purpose for this and that His will will not go unnoticed here. This was my opportunity to step out of my shell and spread the love of God to every widow and orphan. After all, that is what God called His church to do. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: 'to visit orphans and widows in their affliction." -James 1:27.

I want to be like the Church He called us to be. The need is there. The calling is there. We are the Church. Too often, we sit back and say to ourselves that others will take care of the need, that we are not called to go in to the world to be difference makers. When you experience the poverty and devastation I faced this past week in Haiti, that thought is just useless. When I gazed into a child's eyes there and saw that they had orange hair from malnourishment and bloated bellies form worms, how could I just do nothing? How can we have all the love in the world, yet not show it to others? How can we see the need and sit back and do nothing?




This is the urgency we face today. I have seen with my eyes, spoken with my lips, and felt with my heart, but now it is time for our feet to get moving, our hands to start lifting, and a change being made. The next time I stand at that crossroad, I  know where my next step will be and I will run and not stumble to my feet. The children of Haiti need us to help them. They just want to be shown love and to have a future. When the average age of a Country is only 30, that is a problem. We can help give them hope. We can be a difference makers. We can be love!!




Siempre Estare Contigo (Always Be With You)


 
In Haiti, my heart was captivated. Captivated by a people who I call family.




My body may be here, but my heart remains in Haiti.

 

...To Be Continued

Siempre Estare Contigo (Part 1)

When I close my eyes, there is a stillness I cannot surpass. For that moment or less, I am back where my heart still beats. I am at that moment where time is just a number, but eternity is creeping in. I lay my head down and gaze at the spinning fan on my ceiling, and with a slow breeze I smell a mixture of different senses. From my head to my toes, I feel a gentle wind that carries memories back and forth. As I lay on my chest I feel my heart beating so strongly, like a father missing his long, lost son. I feel a rumbling that is like a drum tearing through the silence. I am in a state of confusion as my body lays here, but my heart and mind are longing to be somewhere else. A place where those who have found God worship Him for who He is and not what He's done for them.

I found this place in Haiti. 

It's often been said that to receive is to give a little. I learned that giving little has never given me what I truly wanted to receive. See the problem is that what I am giving up is not my own and that what I want to receive I am not deserving of anyways. It took me a journey to Haiti to finally see that to give God what He wants is not what we think we need to give Him. Oftentimes, we give God whatever we have left, whether it's time, money, love, or just a thought. As Americans, we are under the mindset that we need to be consumed by all the desires of the world to be fully satisfied, and whatever is left over, we can give to the poor. In reality, the poor are not the poor, and we are not wealthy. To the world this is a farce. To God this is the truth.

During my time in Haiti, I was fortunate to spend time with some amazing Haitians and get to understand what life is really like when God is the centerpiece and head of the household. I think oftentimes, that we put the head of our household ahead of who God is and that when we give our best, it is not our best, but our leftovers. God is not interested in leftovers. He wants the best. He wants to be worshiped for who He is and not what He's done. The Haitians get it. They really do. We got to witness Jesus loving Haitians who truly do worship God for who He is and not what He's done for them. This is a paradox in a sense as one may wonder how can Haitians worship God when He has given them not much? In reality, God has given them everything. This life we live in is not our own. This life we abide in will pass and all the riches we consume during it, will pass and be forgotten. They understand that God is a God of love and promise. They see that He has a plan for them and that He is using them in their places to further the Kingdom of God.

Many of us have had the opportunity to attend church here in America. But never have I seen what the real church looks like. That is until I went to a Haitian church. Talk about power, revival, and true God-driven worship! I stood there in awe as I gazed upon the beautiful faces of the Haitians and witnessed something I have rarely seen in my own home church: Worship of a God who is Alive! I saw worshipers who worshiped as if God was standing there in front of them and was not distant. Too often, we here in America, worship as if we are in a long distance relationship with a God who has hearing problems and is visually impaired. We stand by our chairs counting down the seconds till we can sit down. If our arms move it is usually to raise our hand to our mouths as we yawn or to stretch out. We worship as dead Americans. They worship like Alive Haitians! That is what I desire to be like. The more they spent time in worship, the more alive they became. By Wednesday, it was an all out dance party with every soul in the church dancing, singing, smiling and shouting for joy. The aisles were full and the seats empty. Every Haitian was moving, not to the beat of music, but to the presence of God face to face. It was a moment I will never forget. God had to send me to the Country of Haiti to remind me that He is alive and deserves to be worshiped like He is.

Why can't we become like the Haitians? Sure, they have their own struggles, and are less fortunate materialistically. But they have a love for God that makes our love look pathetic. Is God not worth worshiping for who He is and not what He's done? For as easy as it is for Him to give to us, it is easier for Him to take away. We have all seen how God can just take the things we love away in an instant. We've seen our homes, money, belongings, and our dearest loved ones taken away. This is not because He doesn't love us, rather it is for us to push forward and glorify Him for who He is. His blessings never fade away. Sometimes we just need to look deeper into where they are. I realized that if it weren't for the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010, I may have never had my heart torn apart and remade to finally understand who He is. My time there was not in vain. For I was there to serve, but was served more than I ever could have imagined. God taught me a lesson: that he deserves to be worshiped for who He is, now and forevermore. No matter what happens in life, His love never fails. We are now seeing the fruits of the devastation that came in 2010. The Haitians are finding God and are trusting in Him to guide them fully. They understand the power in worship in prayer.


In Haiti, my heart was captivated. Captivated by a people who I call family.


My body may be here, but my heart remains in Haiti.

Siempre Estare Contigo (Always be With You)


...to be continued

Hold Hope to Tear Tears

To have hope is to live in a realm outside our existence. Our human minds can only pretend to have hope through all the trials we go through. We tell ourselves that we are going to hold on to whatever glimpse of hope we can see with our eyes. When opposition comes to face us dead on, we bow down in surrender, losing whatever hope we thought we once had.

As I write this I start to question myself in the capacity of true hope existing in my life. For years I understood hope to be something we say to give us this emotional stimulus to feel better. Hope to me became like a drug that had lost its potency. Unless I upped my dosage I would not feel better. I started to question hope and why it even exists. We all have hoped for something and been let down. I can count more times I have been let down by hope than times where what I wanted came true.

It's in that moment of failure that truth becomes reality. The hope I seek is not based on true faith, but rather it is to suffice my own need to have joy. It's like living in this fantasy world where we hope to have all the desires of our heart but lack the faith to believe it can happen. Our minds cultivate this existence without seeking the counsel of our heart.

This is where hope and its identity are found. We often hope for something with all our mind, pushing the boundaries of intelligence, but fall down an empty path of deception and hurt. It is with our minds that we are often led astray. Why do we seek hope with our minds? Is it because some of us are dreamers? If we are to believe in something so radical, why don't we use the most powerful tool in our arsenal: our hearts.

This isn't some new age idealism. This is the basics. If you are some mathematical genius, set aside your probabilities and take on this message: Hold on to hope with all your heart, for your heart is in instrument that no equation can relate. The reason many of us lose hope is because we lack heart to believe in it. This is a message that extends to anyone. The nature of hope can only grow within the boundaries of your heart.

Hope cannot grow alone. It takes faith, patience and dedication. Hope is real, it exists. You can find it if you embrace its power.

Whatever it is that you are going through I urge you to not give up. If you have been let down, hurt, mistreated or just feel alone, do not give up. If you cannot find hope within yourself find hope in the One who has something more for you. Don't let this world tell you that you are not good enough or that you will amount to nothing. If you hold on to hope with all your heart, you already have taken out the skeptics. This world does not care about you. But when you have this amazing hope brewing in your heart that is healthy and fruitful, they will hate you. This is the world we live in. We were once harmonious and now we are against one another. You can be the difference and set the trend for a hopeful nation.

Your greatest battles are won when the cost of victory is closest to your heart. Let today be a victory for hope today. Tear your tears away by holding on to Hope.

Selfish Trust

The fear of trust is one that plagues many people out there. Most people have issues trying to rid themselves of something that has become a part of them. How odd is it that trust can infect the soul so much when it is something you have not sewn? How does one expect to reap the benefits of a deep friendship or love when they can't trust the other person? On the surface it seems as if trust can be easy to learn, but in reality it is one of the leading causes to many failed marriages, broken relationships and insecurities.


How does one trust if they find themselves unable to do it, you may ask. Well if there was a simple formula then it would make one a wealthy person. Trust begins from birth and continues till the last breath. A child must trust his or her mother to nurture them, love them and protect them. An elder may need to trust their children, doctors or close friends to do many of the day to day amenities. See, trust is something that is so captivating to the soul that it scares the living daylights out of many.


The first thing to examine when attempting to understand trust is to first examine your own heart. Are you afraid to put your trust in someone else because you don't think they will be able to do the job you think they can do? Are you that superior to others in every capacity? Some of you may answer yes. If this is how you view life, as you being the superior being to all, then do you control time, weather, or life for that matter? With yourself being the only one you trust, doubt is no longer in the picture. You will never cry, hurt, or struggle throughout life. I do not believe for one second that man can go through life and never feel self-doubt for a single moment. The reality is that we cannot do everything on our own. We cannot control time, weather or life. In history, no earthly man has ever been able to be the all-knowing or doubtless.


The beauty of getting hurt is the glorious advent of healing. In that moment when your heart has been torn, the restoration that follows is strong and powerful. We learn from these moments and begin to understand our limits, our angles and the extent of how far we can trust someone. The common misunderstanding of trust is that you need to give up your whole heart to another individual in order for that to be considered trust. By doing that, you leave yourself vulnerable to complete brokenness. Trust should be given in measures. Begin first with your family. These are the ones that have been placed in your life to love you and to entrust their life in you. It is understandable that not everyone comes from a family that is filled with love, joy and strength. Many come from torn homes surrounded by destruction, emptiness and hatred for one another. Some of you that grew up in this type of environment will find it very difficult to trust someone after the hurt you went through growing up. Can I tell you that to judge trust based on the hurt you went through is to do trust injustice. The pain you went through did not stem from a lack of trust, but a lack of love.


Trust and love are two different entities. They cross paths many times. When you fall in love with someone, you tend to put your trust in them. When you trust someone, typically you have a love for them that is different than that of others. In their complete state, they are two different worlds coming together to strengthen one bond. This is an important aspect that needs to be understood when it comes to blaming a lack of trust on failed love.


If you look at trust in the areas of your friendships and surroundings, it should be a slow process. Get to know people, build a bond with them that is more the surface friendships. Some of you tend to pour out your entire lives to a stranger with no thought to how that person may perceive you or take that information to the rumor mill. I highly urge to you to be careful when doing this because you truly don't know someone until there is seasoning, through time, in that friendship. Grow, learn and open up.


What trust enables you to do is to open up about your feelings, struggles and issues that you may need to deal with. As you begin to trust more, you leave yourself more open to being hurt. Understand that you truly can never fully trust someone here on earth because we are all sinners in our ways. I will tell you over and over that you will get hurt in life because of broken trust. In the end, you will understand that the beauty in trust is that it lets you grow and become stronger. Through every journey in life we will have moments of being in the pit, but look up and see that there is always a light at the Top.


One day you will see that there is only one true Trust. He is the one that will never hurt you, leave you or abandon your love. Trust begins and ends with Him.


To give your trust is to lose some of your selfishness


That is Truth

Bottomless Love

Life is not a fairytale and love is not something you just get for free. We often underestimate all the facets that go along with love. Our society and culture teaches us love as the depiction of two lovers on the big screen doing whatever they want and never losing each other. We see men cheating on their wives and women desiring the affection and affirmation of another man. The root of their marriage is not that of love, but one of convenience. So how does one get to the root of love then?


To love another, one must first begin to have respect for themselves and believe wholeheartedly that it is a commitment and not just a season. Love does not come in seasons. It does not enter your life for you to give up yourself for another only to move on to the next person when the time seems right for you. Surely we will have friends come in our lives to love for the time they are with us, but this is not true love that is in marriages. We are often brought to the affection of someone else by the attraction of our absent affirmation. To fill a void in our lives by just having someone there for you to "love" is a recipe for disaster. If you are to enter a relationship, enter it for the long run and build it around two centerpieces: God and love.


For something good to last, you give it your best. But for something great to last, you never give up. If you are struggling in your marriage or relationship, work harder at it. Understand that love has no end. It does not reach a point where you max out. Rather, love grows to the point where you see no end. If the road seems far, keep steady in your walk, for the reward is magnificent. Teach yourself good habits and work together as one. If the two of you have a strong love for each other, then it is better than one. Learn to communicate and talk things out. Give up your pride for it will kill not only your love, but your heart as well.


You will hear people say there is no such thing as true love. Others will say that love is stupid and all it did was hurt them. One cannot discount their feelings for only God knows the hurt that they have gone through. We must accept them and help them. Well, how do we do this? We do it with love. Amazing how one can be restored by the one thing they felt destroyed them. The power of love is glorious and its fruits are good for the soul. It requires hard work and patience. Love will not come easy. One must treat it as their career and put in the time to ensure that there is no inadequacies. One of the important things to remember is to run after the right type of love.


There are two types of love. The first is a lusting love. You give up your body, mind and heart for physical, emotional and even mental satisfaction. This often comes from different people and is not limited to one person. You tell this other person you love them and will do whatever it is that they want. You typically seek to make yourself feel good by doing whatever it is that the other person wants you to do. You will give up your morals, ethics and purity for a temporary high. Soon after your high, you will be left all alone with the feelings of worthlessness, loneliness and emptiness settling in deep in your heart. This is one type of love.


Or, there is the flip side: pure love. With this you respect who you are and keep your body, mind and heart for yourself. You do not need to be satisfied by the physical, emotional or mental practices of another. You dedicate your life to be with another through the thick and thin. You respect who they are and in turn expect to be respected as well. The satisfaction you get is a life long journey of laughs, tears and wrinkly skin. You seek to grow old and to never be away from them. You seek only one to fulfill this. You hold your morals high and do not cross any lines when it comes to purity. Love is not a physical pleasure, but one that resonates deep within the heart. You do not get high for a temporary time. Your love will get stronger with time. Your heart will be filled and the feelings of worthlessness, loneliness and emptiness will want to attack you, but your foundation will be solid enough to resist all temptations. This is true love.


Love will not fail you, it will find you. Seek it.


That is Truth

Uncontrollable Thankfulness

Something we were all taught at a very young age was to say "Thank you" when someone did something for us or to be proper when showing our gratitude. As we got older, the meaning of thankfulness has seemed to disappear and is more of responsibility rather than showing honor and respect. It's as if it's a burden for us to be thankful these days. We struggle to show our appreciation for anything and everything. We are so down in our lives that we don't have thankfulness because if we can't be happy, than others cannot be happy either.


There are two kinds of thankfulness: The first is the kind we show onto others. This comes in the form of words, actions or unspoken body language. These are the outward expressions we were taught from a young age and have progressed throughout our livelihood. As we have gotten older, this kind of thankfulness has changed and no longer is the customary response it was when we were younger. This leads to the second kind of thankfulness. This comes from within and is an internal form of expression.


Something even harder to learn is to be truly thankful from within. It is very easy to tell someone thank you for what they have done, but it is extremely to truly be thankful in your heart. The fact of the matter is you cannot lie to yourself. It is easy to lie onto others and completely deceive them. The reality is that you cannot trick your heart into truly being thankful for all that your life is. Yes, it may not be a perfect life, but you are living, breathing and able to inflict change in this world. Your life can completely suck to you, but may have meaning to someone else. It is understandable that to be thankful for a life that is full of struggles and hardship may nearly be impossible, but for just a second remove yourself from where you are in life and look at others. There will always be someone who is going through something worse and is more thankful then you.


That is hard to swallow and may even feel like a shot in the gut, but it is a reality check that we all need to see. How can we not be thankful for all that we have and are doing when others in the world are going through way worse situations, yet they are so thankful. If we cannot be thankful for the blessed lives we have now, then we will never be thankful ever no matter what the circumstances are. We can be living lavish lifestyles with endless amounts of money, but will never be truly thankful because we will want more. Our inability to be thankful stems directly from within and is the result of the greed we desire endlessly. This adversely affects our ability to be thankful outwardly. We struggle to be thankful to others because we do not know how to be thankful ourselves.


To be thankful, one has to fully release their own desires and see their life in its naturalness. The natural beauty that lies within breathing, seeing, hearing, touching and moving is incredible. To do just one of those is such an amazing gift. How can you not be thankful for a lifelong ability to do at least one of those. You were created by design by Him, and it is our purpose to be thankful always. It's not healthy to not be thankful. It leads to many negative things and can truly hurt you terribly. Make it a habit to see the best in the worst. Be a positive person even when you are positive that everything is negative. Grow in the life you have been given and follow the narrow road to happiness. 


Live to be thankful and be thankful to be living.

Humbled Beauty

When it is said to you that you should put others before you, how does that honestly make you feel? Is it not a struggle to constantly do onto others and never have something done for you? Many of us can relate to this in many different facets of our lives. We can look at work, our families, friendships, or leadership positions as examples of areas where we put in so much effort and pour into others lives, but rarely have something done for us. Now ask yourself an honest question: Do you truly do onto others for no return, or do you expect some sort of reward for your "goodness."


The safe answer is yes. But I can honestly tell you that you not always do things for others without expecting something in return. The way we are built and how we function has this inner selfishness that is very difficult to harness. We may not show it publicly or physically, but mentally and emotionally we are very selfish people. Even the best and strongest of us are selfish beings. The challenge is to somehow control that part of you. In doing that, you need to understand the true essence of humbleness.


What does it mean to be humble? Typically it is referred to in the actions of doing onto others. Its true meaning goes much deeper then just actions. To be humble is to fully strip yourself from every situation that lies ahead of you and for you to be a vessel of love. Never let anything be of you. Accept encouragement and gratitude, but never take full credit for all that you have done. Remember, before you were born, you were thought of and designed in extravagant design. For if you were not designed the way you are, you would never be where you are today. It would be wrong to take credit for things we have not designed.


When you bring yourself to a place of complete humbleness, it becomes recognizable. No one likes a cocky individual who is all about themselves. But someone who is continuously humble becomes like the gravity we exist within. We are drawn to those individuals because humbleness is contagious. When I tell someone they did a great job at something and I in turn have a response of thank you, but to God be the glory, I get chills. When you look into the eyes of another and you see an honest and sincere redirection of thankfulness to Someone much higher then them, it is truly beautiful.


To be humble is a blessing. But to do it without seeking attention and high remarks is where a man separates himself from a child. This is the process of maturity and wisdom. Be humble and do it in secret. Do it only for it is right and justified. Be a leader and set an example for others. People seek out those who are on firm ground and of sane thinking. Strip yourselves of your pride and replace it with humbleness. It attacks every aspect of your life. Be humble to your family who loves you dearly. Act humble to the co-workers you interact with. Give humbleness a try with a complete stranger. What is truly the worst that can happen? Give up your selfishness and throw on an armor of humbleness. Be bold in setting forth a change that will only benefit you.


For within you lies the inner strength to be humble. Grasp it and radiate its beautiful power.


That is Truth