Stranded, Broke, & Hungry

This morning I wrote a post about gratitude on the Fyresyde Kitchen blog. It talks about the depth of gratitude.

Today I was driving home from work and I saw a man sitting on the corner with a sign that read, "Stranded, Broke, and Hungry" and inside I cried out, "Amen!"

I've been feeling all of these things as of late although not perhaps the same as this gentleman was feeling them

STRANDED

I posted on this recently and haven't gotten far on it. I did come to a plateau recently, however, thanks to our friends the Hendersons. A recent post on their blog drove me into my success notebook to find a set of inspirational quotes for a response. I have heard and read so many and I was sure that I'd find several in my book. Instead all I found were all these highlighted quotes about serving the Lord and making righteous goals that were in keeping with his will. I felt like I had been walking for days getting nowhere and then I looked up and realized I was walking next to a brick wall with open doorways every few feet that I had never noticed. My thinking shifted and I began to ask a better question.

Yes, I am still stranded because unlike some I find myself unable to act immediately on those goals and such that I have inside of me. I refuse to believe that these ideas and thoughts are from the devil because they are not of that sort. I know they could be my own but they change and mature and clarify so much that I want to belive that these are of God. That this is the Spirit trying to guide me out of this place I'm in to the place that God is in.

BROKE


I don't know that I can really say I am broke. Cracked my be more appropriate. A couple of years ago I was going through I real tough time and as I was going through it I could not for the life of me figure out why I didn't just completely crack. Eventually everything got be so heavy on me that I just couldn't take it anymore and that pushed me over the edge. But still even then I was never really broken just severely cracked. I blame my parents and grandparents for this I never saw them quit. I don't know what kinds of pressures they were under at various times in the past but they always persevered.

Melissa and I have been talking about family trials growing up and I remember various utilities being shut off at different times and I vaguely being aware that those things were shutoff because we didn't have the money to pay for them. But I never remember my mother being defeated. She had a day job, she cleaned a building at nights for more money and she did other things as she could to make more money and the utilities always came back on. I have no trauma from this.

Of my father I know of two times that he cried and I could probably guess to a couple of others. All but one, however, was due to a death (his brothers, sister, and mother). The other one I didn't witness but the story was shared with me later. Still after the storm he got up and he got on. So that's what I'm trying to do now. My Grandma Babe is tough as nails and my Grandma Hamilton was as well and both were examples of what a life with the Lord could be. I never saw any of them break and I think it is part of my genetic makeup now. I don't think I can break because I think my ancestors have been too strong in the past I can only crack.


HUNGRY

I am hungry. I'm starving in fact. I want to make a difference. Yes, I posted about this the other day and got some great advice. But you have got to understand I believe with every inch of my being that I'm meant for something more.

Did you hear that nearly 700,000 children went hungry at sometime last year? (you would if you were reading the Fyresyde Kitchen Blog) How many more do you think went hungry this year? I have so many ideas in my head and scrolled on the dry erase board in my "home office" that it threatens to take me to the end of sanity. There's a great quote from the movie "Facing the Giants" where the coach tells the team that he wants "God to bless this team so much people will talk about what He did." That's what I want in my life.

In the weeks before being attacked by a shark. Bethany Hamilton and her mother had been praying together that Bethany would have an opportunity to share her testimony with others. She survived the shark attack but lost her arm and was thurst into the spotlight for just a short time but in that short time she gave glory to God on every big name show from TRL to the Tonight Show and back again. I would give my arm to have the opportunity to be share my faith on that scale. But is it for me or for Him? I don't know if I can ever know the answer to that.

Ask yourself why you seek the cup of Christ. Is it for His glory or
yours? ~Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade

Several times a week I tell my son that he can do anything he wants. I tell him he can achieve his goals and make his dreams come true. I can't quit mine and be convincing to him at the end of the day. Even if I die trying I have to go after every goal on my board. I'm hungry for it. I need it I want it I've got to have it!

You know how people long to be eternal. But they die with every day that passes.
When you meet them, they’re not what you met last. In any given hour, they kill
some part of themselves. They change, they deny, they contradict–and they call
it growth. At the end there’s nothing left, nothing unrevered or unbetrayed; as
if there had never been any entity, only a succession of adjectives fading in
and out on an unformed mass. How do they expect a permanence which they have
never held for a single moment? ~from Ayn Rand's, The Fountainhead