• Knowing You Can Do More

    Date: 2019.06.07 | Category: Faith, Family Life, Food for Thought Friday | Tags:

    In March 2018, I wrote a blog post called Thriving Not Just Surviving.  I poured my heart out about why we were moving and what I wanted to happen.  It’s one of the best blogs I have ever written and no one will ever read it.  Well, my mother-in-law and my grown kids have read it, but that will be it.  I can’t post it.

    Why?

    Because it didn’t come true.  I mean we moved but what I planned didn’t happen.  The reasons we moved were sound.  I did tons and tons of research.  I planned who would move to what room.  I planned what we would take with us.  I reused everything we had and I donated everything we wouldn’t need.   We worked hard fixing up our old house to sell and fixing up the new smaller house to move into.  My brother and his family were a huge help!   We moved one room at a time and went through everything in each and every room.

    I was horrified…

    At how much stuff we could give away.

    How much stuff we really truly didn’t need.

    How much stuff we had accumulated over the years.

    How much money we had spent collecting this stuff. 

    I kept thinking about those articles that show people around the world standing with all that they own in their front yards.  What would my yard look like?  Just google Americans and what they own.  There are 1,000’s of articles talking about how we are drowning in stuff.  That’s how I felt.  I felt like I was drowning in things that didn’t matter.  It felt good to purge it.  To simplify.  So we moved. 

    BUT then, for many reasons that I won’t go into, we moved back to our old home and none of what I wrote could ever be said.

    It’s really strange to say that I feel sad living in a big house.  I mean most people would be ecstatic to have 7 bedrooms and 3 baths and an extra 800 feet of living space (an apartment) in the garage.  Most people don’t understand how a big, beautiful house could make you sad.  I mean isn’t that what we all want? 

    More. 

    More house. 

    More room. 

    More things.

    I used to feel that way, but not any more.

    I wanted to spend less money every month so we could give more away.  Since I was a little girl I have wanted to be a philanthropist.  I have always wanted to anonymously give and do big things.  I didn’t want to be famous for it.  I just loved the thought of stepping in when people needed something and being God’s hands and feet.  

    I wanted to stop stressing about a house that I can never seem to make look like the big, beautiful house that it is.  It looked beautiful when we didn’t live in it, but it’s stressful trying to make it look put together.  I fail daily at that.

    13 kids are messy.  4 kids in wheelchairs and 2 kids with severe delays and extreme messy tendencies make for more than I can keep up with.  Well, I can’t keep up with making it look like a magazine ad.  I will admit that I have always had a bit of OCD when it comes to my house.  It’s hard to tell amidst the mess but I like organized.  I like a place for everything and everything in it’s place.  I really, really like that.  I mean really like that!  My kids, however, do not share this same passion. 

    We moved back to the bigger house for many reasons.  Reasons that everyone else had.  I can agree with most of the reasons but I still dealt with sadness.  Sadness that I couldn’t make the smaller house work.  Sadness because I felt like my dream died.   I feel guilt along with that sadness.

    I don’t know what to do with this guilt that I feel.  And before anyone starts to comment about guilt, I want you to know that I think we should all have some of this guilt.   Even years ago when we were struggling with money, we still had so much.  I see that now.   Maybe it’s wisdom that comes with age or maybe it’s because Love Without Boundaries has opened my eyes to the need all over the world, but there is such need everywhere.  I have so much so how could I not I feel some guilt?

    Guilt that I get to live in America where I can order anything I want at any time. Guilt that I can order food at any drive through I want or grab a cart full of whatever pleases me at the local grocery store.  Guilt that I own so much that I really don’t need.   Guilt that happens when I open up my inbox and read e-mails about trafficked children and children digging through the dump to find plastic to sell to get one meal a day and children who die because they need the simplest of medical care that we take for granted.  When I read about mothers walking hours to try to find someone to help their baby or families that sell everything they own trying to get the medical care their child needs.  Children who never get to go to school or have to drop out to work  when they hit the 3rd grade.  Children as young as 6 caring for their younger siblings while their families work.  My list could go on and on.   I feel guilt because I know the truth.

    I don’t deserve any of this.   It’s luck of the draw that I was born here, in this time, in this country.  Granted Dan worked hard to get through school and it took 15 years of our life to get through schooling and training, I am not downplaying hard work and working for success.   I believe in working hard for what you have.   I don’t want to take that for granted, but when God gives us much we should do more.  That’s what I want to do. MORE!

    Here’s what our move has taught me.  We can always do more.  We made a way for two house payments during all of this.  Granted I pushed our budget to the MAX and we had to borrow BUT it showed me there was wiggle room for doing more.  We all think we don’t have enough.  We all think we will do it later or someone else will do it.   But is that true?  Why do we hold on so tight to what we have?   Why are we so ready to spend our money on things that really don’t matter? 

    I mean I’m constantly looking at crowdfunding stuff that gets blown out of this world while people are trying to buy the next BIG thing that hasn’t been made yet.

    And yet at Love Without Boundaries we share these stories of hurting kids and families in need, and although we have the best supporters,

    and this bears repeating…THE VERY BEST SUPPORTERS,

    and have had them for a long time, we can’t quite get to the next level.  Some children never get funded.  Some stories just don’t tug on people’s heartstrings.  Some kids just wait.  We always seem to find a way to help but still there’s so much need that we have to say no to.  Why do kids wait for surgery?  Shouldn’t we all be lining up to do the right thing? 

    To help children who are trafficked. 

    To help fund a surgery so parents can stay with their child. 

    To help the mother who needs just a little help to feed her children. 

    To help a child get schooling so they can get out of this cycle of poverty. 

    To give someone a hot meal and an encouraging word.

    There’s so much to do and yet…

    Why does a new fangled watch that needs 100’s of 1,000’s of dollars get funded in 24 hours and a child who needs help sits waiting for someone to step up?

    Why? 

    Why don’t we step up?

    Why don’t we want to do more?

    My heart is so heavy.

    I don’t know what God has planned but my dream that I had last April is gone.  I wasn’t going to share my feelings.  It’s hard to be uncomfortable.  It’s hard to make yourself vulnerable.  It’s hard to share your thoughts and your feelings.  It’s hard to put yourself out there.  It’s easier to stay in our bubble of comfort and pretend that there aren’t hurting people in the world.  I saw this post and it helped…

    I can’t mess up God’s plan, I’m not that important.

    I was bogged down in feeling sad that I couldn’t do what I thought was the right way to do more, but I know God always provides a way.  I’ve seen it happen time and time again.  God knows the need.  He’s the answer, not me.  I’m but a small drop in a big ocean.  Now I’m just waiting for Him to show me what is next because there’s so much to do and I don’t know where to start.

    So much of my life went by while I was striving for the American dream and I realize that it was all a lie.  I don’t know why it took so long for my eyes to be opened, but now that they are…

    I want to open everyone’s eyes because we are striving for the wrong things.  We don’t need 10 blankets if we already have 8 and only use 5.  We need to share.  We need to comfort others.  We need to do more.  We need to step up and get out of our comfort zone.   Francis Chan said it best…

    “Our greatest fear should not be of failure but of succeeding at things in life that really don’t matter.”

    I don’t want to strive for things that really don’t matter any more.  I don’t want to be afraid to speak up worrying about what people will say.  I don’t want to be quiet any more. 

    I guess that’s what has made me the saddest about our move not working.  I wanted to be able to say, “See we did with less and you can too.”  It’s hard to preach about giving more to people when you live in a big, beautiful house.   They look at you and say, “Well, it’s easy for you to give.  You have so much.”  But I am saying we can all give more. 

    More of our time.

    More of our love.

    More of everything.

    We can all do that.   It’s not necessarily about money.  It’s about being there.  It’s about being invested.  It’s about caring.  It’s about sharing something as simple as a smile or an encouraging word.  It’s about making life not about you but about others. 

    Step out of your comfort zone and be the something that someone else needs today.  Don’t wait!