A Challenge To Know You

So here is the hardest part of growing up. No one sees or knows when it really happens. I have had this realization that we all walk around thinking that we know each other but we don't. It is not necessarily a bad thing, we are comfortable with each other, we are friends and we are family and we are comforted by the fact that we are each other's constants. We might even say we know each other like the back of our own hands - how often do you actually examine the back of your own hands? Do you notice every new freckle? Here is the thing, when you are so close to somebody, can you see the changes? Do you notice when someone slowly matures, or even when someone has a life altering revelation about their inner self, do you notice? If maturity and wisdom and growing up happen on the inside how are those closest to us, most comfortable, going to notice? Here is my challenge share about yourself something real (a memory of something that recently happened, how did you feel? did it change you?), something true (a fact about yourself), and finally a secret that few or no people know. Here is a fact, I want to know you better than I know the back of my own hands, I want to know how you grew up, how you changed, matured, how you live from the inside out.

I'll start

Something real: When I was in Nicaragua, in the capital, Monogua, I went to a dump where 1200 people live on piles of garbage. As I stood listening to a pastor, Pastor Marcos, tell stories of how people lived and died on the dump I was useless. I cried for the people, I cried for the story of a mother whose baby was run over by a garbage truck because it was laying in a BOX, I cried for 1200 people living on garbage but I was useless. One day was all I had, One day to walk around and see suffering and one day to wonder what can I do? It was probably the most, ministry wise, unproductive day of my missions trip and yet it is the story, the stories, I can't forget, the story I can't stop telling. That day changed me, because that day I discovered there isn't always something tangible you can do in one day. I discovered that the way one person changes the world is by involving others, empowering others. I discovered that while I may not be the person going in to the dump and helping and healing and feeding 1200 people who live on garbage, I can help them by being the voice of their stories, of their suffering, of their hope. That "useless" day made me a better person.

Something true: I think that sarcasm is God's gift to man, to help us to be funny. My new motto sarcasm -- h-i-larious.

A secret: When I am with friends or family and am feeling kinda droopy I close my eyes and pretend to sleep to hear what people would say around me when they think that I am sleeping. It is also a great way to be a part of conversations without the obligation of having to speak. weird and random I know, but nobody knows that about me, and now you do.