Driving down the freeway I saw a car dealership sign that looked like it was on the fritz. The huge flashing, multi-bulbed sign was blinking with such scattered inconsistency that it gave off the appearance of being broken. But, since I was stuck in traffic and was able to spend an abnormal amount of time watching it, I discovered there actually was a pattern. It would flash and skip and blink with each announcement it was trying to make, to us, the drivers in traffic.

We would fall for it.

We found ourselves looking away from the slow moving cars in front of us towards the seemingly glitchy lights just in time for its message to appear clearly, pausing long enough for us to read.

New!

Glitch, blink, flash

Cheap!

Flash, glitch, glitch

Deal!

I thought about how clever and annoying this ploy was. Someone knew that the appearance of the sign seeming broken would catch our attention and draw our eyes away from the normal.

We see this happen in nature also.

Quickly take a mental scan of this mornings Facebook page and think about that one person who is always complaining and flashing desperate attention seeking status updates.

Emotionally shouting “Help! Someone notice me! Feel sorry for me! Give me some attention!”

Flash, glitch, glitch

I have a few of these people in my life who have always done this. I have often wondered what it is that makes them like this. What makes them so desperate that they would resort to such a cheap cry for attention?

Of course I then began to think of myself. Just last night I was talking to someone about seemingly unintentional manipulations to get affirmation/attention/notice from others and the gross feeling I feel when I receive it. Ugh! I think. Gross. That was not what I wanted. A contrived affirmation in response to emotional manipulation.

The thought gives me shivers and yet as an insecure human I know that I’ve found myself resorting to it.

So why? Why do we use a scam to attract attention? How can we avoid it?

The bible says in Romans 8:15-16

For [the Spirit which] you have now received [is] not a spirit of slavery to put you once more in bondage to fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption [the Spirit producing sonship] in [the bliss of] which we cry, Abba (Father)! Father!
The Spirit Himself [thus] testifies together with our own spirit, [assuring us] that we are children of God.”

I suppose, if I am to believe Paul in these verses, that freedom from the bondage of fear/self-pity/insecurity/etc., the things that drive us to a flashy scam of a life, lies in the knowledge of whose children we are.

This is an amazing truth that I’ve often found myself reflecting on, BUT, the thing that jumped out at me, while reading these verses this time, is the last bit. The bit that says “The Spirit Himself testifies together with our own spirit…”

“ ‘The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit.’ Our own spirit tells us we are God’s children, but the voice with which it speaks is, as we know, prompted and inspired by the divine Spirit itself.”-James Denney

Our spirit knows who we are.

AND

It is in agreement with the Holy Spirit’s testifying that we are children of God.

The definition of spirit is: The principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between the body and soul.

Our spirit which is the principle of our conscious life knows. And then beyond that knowledge and even greater than that knowledge is the fact that those of us who profess belief in Jesus as our Savior also have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit who is constantly testifying that we are children of God.

If we heard this testifying or if we listened to the cry of our own spirits in tandem with the Holy spirit then why would we be living glitchy, fake, attention grabbing lives?

That flashy sign reminded me that I need to remember who I am.

I need to be able to rest peacefully and un-selfconciously in that knowledge and then let the impact of that knowledge be reflected back out on my face, smile, eyes, words, body language, actions, Facebook status…I need to have a clear sign with a clear message NOT using cheap tricks or gimmicks but truth and honesty.

I am a child of God.

I am a child of God.

I am a child of God.

Shhhh…

Can you hear your heart beating and your spirit breathing that song?

It is.

This week I walked headfirst into extreme contrast. On one hand, I found myself recording a live video in the same building as the Blood:Water Mission offices. A while back I was able to speak with Dan Haseltine, the lead singer of the band Jars of Clay, about the company that he helped found in order to have an impact on the HIV/AIDS crisis in Africa by providing clean water and sanitation to communities throughout the continent. As described on their website, Blood:Water Mission launched the 1000 Wells Project in 2005 as a nation-wide effort to raise enough money to provide clean water and sanitation to 1000 communities in sub-Saharan Africa based on the equation that $1 provides one African with clean water for an entire year. Can you grasp that?

$1

That is like saying:

1 ITunes song download

1 lottery ticket

1 coke at a restaurant

2 tacos at Jack in the Box

among many other frivolous things. I am sitting here thinking about the fact that my ITunes music buying spree last week could’ve provided enough clean water to 20 Africans for an entire year. Or enough clean water for one African for 20 years! This is blowing my mind today because just yesterday I heard someone tell me that he used to work for a high end rug making shop and once they sold a special made rug to a homeowner for $150,000. I sat in awe at the contrast of these two figures.

$1 for life

$150,000 for a decoration

Ugh. It makes me sick to my stomach. Not just because someone with tons more money than I have would spend it in this way but because I am seeing how frivolously I spend what I have. Every single soda I buy at a restaurant or magazine I buy in an airport or any other un-needed luxury I buy myself (and yes, these stupid things are luxuries. The definition of luxury is “indulgence in or enjoyment of comforts and pleasures in addition to those necessary for a reasonable standard of well-being”) I am withholding clean water and sanitation (not luxuries but necessities) from countless people throughout the world.

Blood:Water Mission is only one company among many others who are reaching out to help those others throughout our world. One, whose mission is in alignment with Matthew 25:34-40

34-36″Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what’s coming to you in this kingdom. It’s been ready for you since the world’s foundation. And here’s why:

I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.’

37-40″Then those ‘sheep’ are going to say, ‘Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?’ Then the King will say, ‘I’m telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.’

Could this be said about us?

It seems such a drastic difference between 1 $4.00 magazine and an $150,000 rug but what I realized in thinking about the two is that there really is no difference. Both amounts of money were/are spent frivilously and both amounts could be providing life to someone else. I am going to do something about this in my life and no, I don’t work for Blood:Water Mission but I couldn’t ignore the huge contrast that I was confronted with while walking through their offices this last week. I would also challenge you to do the same. Hop onto the Blood:Water Mission website and check out all of the ways you can help. They have many genius ways that you can help so that no one can feel like they are unable to join their community for change. Or if you know of another group in alignment with those verses in Matthew 25 then find yourself involving yourself in their mission. Whatever you do I would love to hear how it is impacting your life as a result. Feel free to leave comments and thoughts below as well as passing this blog along with the Twitter, Facebook, Email buttons below.

Let’s feed, give water, shelter, comfort, and visit.

Let’s give up our $150,000 rugs.

If you would like more information about Blood:Water Mission and the amazing things they are doing throughout Africa you can check out their website at www.bloodwatermission.com.

To me…Today is not a glimmer but a gleam. Today is not a whisper but a shout. Today is not an ending but a beginning. Today is not small but huge.

Today is the day that I will film 5 songs off of my new record, live, with the help of some of the best players I know. Along with my husband on the electric guitar, joining me will be Paper Route’s JT Daly and Josh Orr, Aaron Redfield, Brooke Waggoner, Timbre Cierpke (a singing harpist!) a group of people forming a 6 piece string section, as well as the famed mixing guru Shane D Wilson making us sound lovely and super videographer Michael Dalton making us look lovely.

Yesterday I sat on the flight from Denver to Nashville thinking, “How has this happened? How did I get so lucky? Is this real life?”

Well last night we rehearsed and I’ll be honest, I am so proud and thrilled by the way it sounds (I mean come on, harp, piano, strings and sometimes dual drummers among other great stuff), that I am still wondering if this is really happening. Well, unless this is the longest dream I’ve ever had, then it is real life and a very wonderful one it is.

I am beyond thrilled to be able to capture these songs in a live setting, with all hands on deck trying to pull off the cornucopia of sounds that are found on my CD.

I will be keeping you posted on when the video’s will be finished and ready for your eye’s consumption, but until then would you pray I don’t forget my own words, forget what to do with my hands in front of a camera like Will Farell, and that the filming of these songs will capture the exhale of life that these songs were written from.

Thanks friends!

I’ve been staying, with my husband and daughter, at my mother’s house in Texas. I am enjoying the excess time I get to spend with her while making dinner or sitting on the couch or watching my daughter and her cousins play in her large back yard. She is one of the few people who I can chat with endlessly as well as sit silently with. I feel like I know my mother and she truly knows me, so the other day when I heard my 5 year old niece call to my mother from the other room and say, “I love you Mamaw,” I knew that if my mother had heard her, she would have responded with a resounding, “I love you too, Mikah!” But, she didn’t respond. She was just out of ear reach when my niece’s delicate voice lilted that precious sentence and so there was no response to the tiny heart that spoke it.

I stood, folding laundry, in another room, suspended with a tinge of sadness for my niece. I know what an ache of sadness can hover in a heart that is vulnerable enough to express love and not get a response of love in return. It was an innocent situation that I doubt my niece even thought twice about but it sent shivers down my spine as I thought of the bigger instances I’ve watched similar, non-innocent, scenarios play out in peoples lives around me, as well as my own.

Love has such power. Love can heal and it’s lack can crush. Love can carry while being without it leaves us lumbering, stumbling along. Love fills but it’s void is parasitic, eating away at us till we feel like empty, emotionless, skin.

Requite- To respond to, return.

Un-requited- Not returned or reciprocated.

I think of the devastation that I feel when the tiniest amount of my love is unrequited. When I give of myself, my story, my heart, my time, my attention…my love and someone turns their back to it, as if it is worthless to them. It leaves me feeling cheap and lonely. My heart aches even now thinking about these situations, but I am reminded of a Love that is always returned. In fact, it was gushing, flowing, filling up any and all space in and around me before I even started responding to it. A love that is ready to respond to me as soon as I turn my face towards it, no, as soon as even my thoughts are turned towards it.

I have the love of a Creator, of a Savior, of a perfect Father/Mother/Husband/Friend/Confidant.

I have the love of God.

A love that never fails.

Where relationships can leave me aching and emptying, this knowledge fills me, moving my heart towards bursting. This heart bursting is my response. It is worship. It is the place where I want to be when my mouth opens to sing to Him.

Jesus, I love you.

The act of love is probably the most vulnerable we can be. Are you willing to be vulnerable and love? To show and share your love with others? With a Savior?

Think on this the next time your mouth starts forming the words to the latest worship song…or even, perhaps, your own song.

The past three months my husband, daughter and I have been living in a semi-homeless state while traveling around region to region and singing. I say semi homeless because indeed we do not have a home we own or are paying rent on, at the moment, but we have always had a place to stay. You can read about this on my blog “Relating Myself To The Turtles….”

I’ll admit that I was a bit nervous when we started this journey. Not so much about the travel (thousands and thousands of miles logged by car and plane) but about the friend making. We knew when we started this travel, that we would be doing something new. Normally I fly into someplace where I get picked up from the airport, then transported to a venue where I sing and then I get transported back to the airport in order to board a plane back home or on to the next venue. With a schedule like this, it leaves little time for making friends but this is something we knew we wanted to change.

When many people think about the “church,” they get a nice little visual of their 1000 seat auditorium where they have spent many Sunday mornings over the past few years of their lives. But, a few years ago, I stood on a stage, on a Sunday morning and looked out across the thousand or so faces looking back at me and saw so much more. I listened to their voices singing and began imagining the thousands/millions of voices that were being lifted up in worship that morning/that day across the globe. The sound of English/French/Spanish/Italian/German/Russian among all the other tongues on our planet singing out to our one, worship worthy Savior.

That is the church.

She is huge, multi-lingual. Her face is the face of a white haired grandmother of 25 grandkids in Texas, of a platinum-hair-dyed, lip-pierced 19 year old ex-junkie in London, of an ebony skinned orphaned youth in Africa, of a girl like me. The church is the face of anyone turned, lifted up towards their Creator.

These are the people. This is the church that I wanted to wade into. Meeting those in it and being around long enough to have lunch with her instead of a two sentence conversation as I ran to my next plane.

And this is what we have done.

We have coffee-d, lunched, dinner-ed, talked, cried, laughed, shared, dug and planted with those faces of the church while moving slowly through cities and states. My heart has filled and filled with conversation and relationship with this massive church and I have only recently found one downside. When relationships are made that are deeper than a two sentence conversation then it is difficult to leave, but this is still what we need to do right now. While it is hard to move out of each city we are eager to move into the next and begin the meeting/getting to know new/other faces of the church.

We are homeless, yes , but we are making so many friends while moving around.

Goodbye San Diego, Utah, Colorado.

Hello Texas. (YeeHaw!)

Just a bit ago I decided that it was time to get out my net, go chasing and capture a few of my thoughts about my new CD “Current” on video. With quite a bit of help from my videographer friend Tim Devlin and his masterful eye, we did just that. I’d love to hear your thoughts on what will be the first of many video’s for my new CD and I hope you enjoy to the point that you might even find yourself passing it along to your friends.