"Some people don't believe in helping the poor. They think that the poor are poor by choice,
that they've decided not to work and shouldn't complain when they suffer. And while
that might be true on occasion, a woman collecting cow dung in Delhi works every bit as
hard as the president of a huge company....The people who say such things have never
scooped up cow dung, have never seen their children go hungry. They haven't suffered,
and they never really stop and think about what causes suffering, about how
we're all the same, but how some are born into better worlds than others."
**~~excerpt from The Wishing Trees by John Shors

the beginning of Lent = a fresh start

The beginning of Lent begins today...it seems from last year I've got a lot to live up to. It seems like such a long time ago from last year. Sometimes I wonder what I would look like physically if I would have kept up on my Paleo diet. Would I be pretty ripped and thin...or would I have gave up? Something tells me that if I would of stuck with it, I would look completely different than I do now.....but my feelings on meat has changed a bunch just with one comment I heard on tv.

"The fate of an animals life should not be determined by my appetite."

Rings true to me--I eat a lot less meat now a days and I feel much better without it.

So what will my Lenten challenge be this year? I have one serious oath that I have made to God that I will keep nameless for all you in blogosphere. It's not that it's something that I don't want to be accountable for, but something that is very private to me and I have one person in my life that is holding me to be accountable. That is enough for me. I seriously think this is something that I can overcome and make a personal life change. What this thing is has made me trust and find security in things besides my God. Which is very wrong....I'm hoping that this lenten season will begin a new life practice.

On Monday as I was walking the perimeter of our house checking out what the torrential flood of water did to our yard,something small and yellow caught my eye. I had a new crocus flower open and bloom. I have many, many flowers sprouting from the ground at this moment. Literally hundreds, but this was the front runner and first to open it's bloom. I couldn't help but run inside to get my camera and take a picture! New life---it can't help but make you smile.

I've been battling over some feelings lately that have literally gotten me into the pits. It's been one of those seasons where you have a hard time seeing how God has been moving in your own life because you're too stuck on seeing him move in others lives. A lot of things are changing in our lives as a whole. The groups of friends that we hang out with are changing, our work situations are changing, feelings of being left out or left behind are surfacing. Overall just a time of stress and discouraging moments. Have you ever had a time where it feels the whole world is swirling around you and you're the only one standing still? Or have you seen repeatedly God answers others prayers so easily, and you're still waiting on the sidelines wondering if God even cares. Or so many things in the past have been a "no" that you don't want to go to God anymore because it'll just be a no because you have no reason to believe that it would be any different?

It's been one of those seasons.

There are three things that Matt and I have been praying for some time about. They seem very unrealistic to those who don't believe or don't trust in God. I even talked with a fellow worker who told me blantantly, "Kim these aren't good economic times, I doubt very seriously that THAT will happen."

What a discouraging thing to say to someone!
I went home that evening and had to "talk it all over again" with Matthew and we both came to the same conclusion that our God is bigger than our circumstances!

And then I look down at my little pup Mo. His whole 8 years of life he was waiting for someone to love him and show him that he mattered. I'm sure, especially with the process of helping him to heal and be the dog that he was always meant to be, he never thought that would happen. I truly believe that God never wanted to see him go through so much pain and trama, but it got him to us. It was a slow process, it took many months for him just to feel comfortable with us. Sometimes even today when I have my tennis racket in my hand or we raise our voices, he cowers down in a scared position with his tail between his legs. I'm sure he never thought he would find a forever home. But God had different plans for him.

Just like with Moey, and with the renewed hope of flowers coming out of the ground, winter does not last forever no matter how difficult it is to see past the cold. God makes ALL things new.

So with this Lenten season beginning today, my hope is for new things. Just like that little flower and like Mo, I can grow to be the person that I'm supposed to be: new and different.

God is BIGGER than my circumstance......