ONE- LOVE146

What these victims need above all is to know that they are not alone; that we are not forgetting them, that when their voices are stifled we shall lend them ours, that while their freedom depends on ours, the quality of our freedom depends on theirs. ~Elie Wiesel



Hands down, Ten Shekel Shirt {http://tenshekelshirt.com/} and LOVE146 {www.love146.org} are two of my favorite ONE(s)! Ten Shekel Shirt's lead singer, Lamont Hiebert, helped start LOVE146 in 2002, with Co-Founders Rob Morris, Desirea Rodgers and Caroline Hahm. They "went on an exploratory trip to SE Asia to determine how they could serve in the fight against child sex trafficking." Out of this trip Love146 was birthed. They partner and network with other abolition orgs in Asia, Europe and the U.S. to grow the abolition movement and provide restorative care for survivors. {*all info taken from www.love146.org}



Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. ~1 Cor. 13

Ten Shekel Shirt's album's, Jubilee, lyrics revolve around freedom and restoration. The title track, Jubilee, has an especially phenomenal, behind the song story. You can take a listen here: {www.facebook.com/pages/Ten-Shekel-Shirt/52267945483?v=app_5179614317} and read the story here:

Jubilee
The origin of the word Jubilee has nothing to do with a wedding anniversary or a schmaltzy Las Vegas show. It has everything to do with the emancipation of slaves and the celebration of freedom and justice. When I wrote the title track, Jubilee, I combined that ancient meaning of the word with this true story of a teenage girl rescued from slavery and her first moments in a safehome.

At the tender age of 12, she was sold to a brothel by her stepfather. After 4 years of unspeakable violence, cruelty and shame she was rescued and brought to a safehome our charity (Love146) supports. The first moment she entered the home she noticed a small picture of Jesus on the wall. When she saw it she fell down and wept in utter relief and astonishment. She then explained that while she was in captivity she would often dream of being in a safe place and that in those dreams she would picture that face.

A strange thing happened while I was writing the song. Although I was writing about a safehome I kept feeling like the song had another layer to it, one that was somehow linked to the hereafter. I told the safehome director about this unintended sense I was getting from my own song. She then told me that after a successful, restorative year in the safehome the girl that had inspired the song had died of AIDS. The caregiver said she past away with a peaceful countenance on her face as she expectantly prepared for her ultimate Jubilee. *Source: www.myspace.com/tenshekelshirt/blog#ixzz129vJwldO

Please, check out Ten Shekel Shirts' CD, Jubilee, and LOVE146. These ONE(s) are literally saving lives by passionately pursing the end of children becoming victims of slavery, rape, and exploitation.

Ten Shekel Shirt {http://tenshekelshirt.com/}
LOVE146 {www.love146.org}

ONE - TOMS

Bread for myself is a material question. Bread for my neighbor is a spiritual one. ~Nicholas Berdyaev


*My Own Two Hands, Ben Harper & Jack Johnson

ONE person can change another's life. Can change a family-community-country.

Be it the man on the street giving lunch to the homeless - The nurse holding a lonely elderly woman's hand as she passes from here to eternity - The teenager investing his summer job money to rescue a girl trapped in the sex slave trade.

Oh, how I love to hear how ONE person changed a life and made a difference.

So each day this week, I want to highlight those ONE(s) who make a difference. They inspire me. I hope they'll inspire you too.

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It's not. ~Dr. Seuss

TOMS {www.toms.com}
In 2006, American traveler Blake Mycoskie befriended children in Argentina and found they had no shoes to protect their feet. Wanting to help, he created TOMS Shoes, a company that would match every pair of shoes purchased with a pair of new shoes given to a child in need. One for One. Check out these smiles as they give away their 1,000,000th pair of shoes! {taken directly from TOMS website}

Oh to be there putting shoes on these precious feet! Hope you love this video as much as I do!!

Lil' Lovelies

~ Mikeschair, My Lovely



I found these lil' lovelies at a thrift store at the bottom of a decrepit box bound by aged, yellowed masking tape. Labeled ".10 cents each," the worn cardboard overflowed with discarded spools of frayed yarn, mangled rainbows of thread, seamstress tools--some rusted, some broken--all attempting to escape.

Digging carefully to avoid needles, I discovered these adorable rulers hidden deep down. It was love at first sight! Immediately I started planning how to re-purpose them, and give them a fresh start.

As far as I was concerned, I'd struck gold!! But the ladies at the register saw my find differently. Throwing their heads back, they hooted and snorted, tickled I would pay money for "trash." My valuable find was so worthless to them they were willing to give me it for free! (I ended up paying .49 cents.)

I gave those ladies a good ol' fashioned "what for," and let them know they didn't have any vision and the problem wasn't the rulers, it was the hands that had used and abused them. No matter these rulers had been tossed out. Labeled as worthless. Forgotten about for years. Only to endure jeering and disdain. In my mind's eye, these sweet babies were better than new and I had big plans for them! They had finally landed in the right hands that would lovingly give them new life. Humph!

I couldn't wait to take my treasures home. Wash them off. Give them a new purpose. A place to display their beauty. Sure, they're chipped, worn, faded, and broken. But they've seen a lot of life. That's part of the reason I love them so. The marks they bear tell a story of character, depth, beauty.

Parts of us are like these dear lil' rulers, aren't they? Hearts that have been tossed out, beat up, broken down by circumstances, people, events. We sit at the bottom of a crumbling pit, surrounded by a whole lotta junk, feeling worthless, ugly, looked down upon, dumb, without purpose.

There is Someone who sees us. Really sees. Beyond the hurt, broken, despair, worn. He sees a rare and beautiful treasure. And no matter what others think, He fights for us and is passionate, not ashamed, to pull us out of the junk. He's already paid the price to take us home and brush us off. He has a vision and plan to give new life where the old is no longer feasible. And He knows the scars, hurts and pains that have broken us, have equally made us beautiful and given our stories depth that display His glory. And that, my friends, in the right hands...His hands...is lovely.

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me, because the LORD has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.

They will be...a...display of his splendor. ~Isaiah 61

Who Am i?

Just a little something i'm musing over as i find it hard to wrap my head around this:

The God who was before time and who is and who will forever be, sees me. Billions of humans, and He notes me. Noted me long long long ago. Who am i that "before I was born the LORD called me; from my birth he has made mention of my name" (Isaiah 49:1)?

He wants to hear my voice in prayer and praise. Who am i that the Lord would desire my frog in the throat when for years He's been serenaded when "the morning stars sang in chorus and all the angels shouted praise?" (Job 38:7)

With the same voice that He "counts the stars and calls them all by name," He calls me "by a new name" (Psalm 147:4; Isaiah 62:2).

i know my heart, and at times i want to escape it. So who am i that, though He could be anywhere in the world, God would make His home with me (John 14:23)? And there, i have "rest in His presence" (1 John 3:19).

Read Genesis, Job, the Gospels, Revelation. Then tell me if you can wrap your head around who the Lord is. i bet you'll wonder and marvel too, who am i that He would see me, want me, call me and abide with me?

But He does. And I'm pretty sure it's less about who i am, and all about who HE is: "Faithful and True" (Revelation 19:11).

Silent Night, Holy Night

"As soon as we are alone...inner chaos opens up in us. This chaos can be so disturbing and so confusing that we can hardly wait to get busy again. Entering a private room and shutting the door, therefore, does not mean that we immediately shut out all our inner doubts, anxieties, fears, bad memories, unresolved conflicts, angry feelings and impulsive desires. On the contrary, when we have removed our outer distraction, we often find that our inner distractions manifest themselves to us in full force. We often use the outer distractions to shield ourselves from the interior noises. This makes the discipline of solitude all the more important."
~Henri Nouwen (Making All Things New and Other Classics)

The last time I had overnight guests, I put my fan in the spare room for their comfort. We laughed and talked halfway through the night. After a hearty round of "Good night John Boy, Good night Pa!" the house hushed and to my surprise, my head blared!

How many thoughts can one girl have at one time! The whir between my ears must be akin to when an avalanche meets a tornado meets a hurricane. A messy raucous!

Why was I thinking a thousand thoughts all of a sudden?

And then it hit me. My brain always fusses at warp speed. I just never noticed because my fan's white noise muffles my thoughts.

I became keenly aware- with all my yammering filling my mind, I didn't have space for the Lord's voice.

Right then, laying in the still dark, I began to practice the age old discipline of silence. I asked the Lord to calm the rapid-fire voices of my plans, musings, anxieties, excitements, memories and to-do's.

It took a while, but I grew accustomed to the quiet. And my friends, that Silent Night became a Holy Night as I drew near to the one Voice I needed to listen to. Were there epiphanies or major transformations? No, not really. But there was sweet peace and a realization He is near.

Perhaps that is an epiphany after all to my overworked mind. I may just keep my fan in the guest room!

In the Ordinary...

I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power for us who believe. ~Ephesians 1



We look for visions of heaven and we never dream that all the time God is in the commonplace things and people around us. ~Oswald Chambers



A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows. ~St. Francis of Assisi



Becoming the beloved is pulling the truth revealed to me from above down into the ordinariness of what I am, in fact, thinking of, talking about and doing from hour to hour. ~Henri Nouwen




In ordinary life we hardly realize that we receive a great deal more than we give, and that it is only with gratitude that life becomes rich. ~Dietrich Bonhoeffer

All He Had

He died without a thought for his own welfare... ~Isaiah 53

Maine in summertime. Have three more glorious words ever been laced together? I contend they have not. My Grampy and Nanny lived Downeast, which happily afforded me childhood summers roving the East Coast. A favorite destination was Acadia National Park located on Mount Desert Island, or MDI as the locals call it, a'yuh!


(My sisters and me on top of Cadilac Mtn)

From the peaks of Acadia’s crowning jewel - Cadillac Mountain - lavender lupine, Canada's lush green borders, and white sailboats bobbing in the deep blue ocean fill your eyes. Sweet hay and crisp pine scents romance your sniffer. Warm, salty breezes refresh you. Acadia translates to "heaven on earth" in French; I couldn't agree more.


(A lil' slice of heaven: Acadia National Park)

Before I get carried away though, I want to introduce you to George. George Dorr.

His were the sort that hung out with the perpetually exclusive, though I'm not one to name drop (cough, cough! Kennedy, Vanderbilt, Rockefeller). Flabbergasting wealth afforded them luxurious summers on the coast as well. Determined to keep MDI their private playground, they rapidly scooped up land to perch their "cottages" (ahem; see picture below). MDI did not stand a chance to remain naturally pristine with the tug of war waging between these Industrious and the timber companies. In the early 1900's, George and a few other men saw the warning signs. Act now to rescue the land or it will be lost forever.


(Dorr summer home, The Old Farm)

George, bachelor and heir to a New England textile fortune (read: did not have to work), jumped into action and took the helm of saving MDI's spectacular natural beauty. He and his cronies tirelessly petitioned the other wealthies to donate their land. If they wouldn't budge, George bartered with his own inheritance.


(Thanks guys!)

The main goal was this: rescue as much land as possible, put it under the authority of the government so it would be untouchable and call it a National Park. This with a new fangled idea George and friends came up with.

All said and done, 47,000 acres of land (open to all!) now proudly bears the name and security of Acadia National Park; 30,000 of these acres are on MDI.

George did it! But at what cost? A high one...he died a pauper. At the time of his death, George called a shack his home, having given everything - cottage (the one pictured above), land, inheritance - to save what he loved.


(Wild Lupines)

I wonder if George was in love with God. If so, did he recognize how his life's example points to Christ's?

Christ sees something so beautiful He gave everything to save it. He left His home in heaven.

He gave His very life.

He gave His very life.

He gave His very life.

He saw something beautiful and acted out of mercy on the cross to rescue so all would not be lost.

Now, we bear His Name and rest under His authority...untouchable to that which would destroy and mar. We rest under His hope. And we rest knowing He thinks we are utterly invaluably beautiful and worth His very life.


(View from the top, Cadillac Mountain)

George gave all he had for the public to enjoy Acadia National Park, aka "heaven on earth." Jesus gave all He had to bring heaven on earth, so we can one day enjoy Him in heaven. I hope someday you visit the park to appreciate George’s efforts. (Send me a postcard!) But more than that, I sincerely hope you visit the cross of Christ and approach His throne with confidence to find for yourself the Love that saves you for eternity.

The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin so that he'd see life come from it—life, life, and more life. And God's plan will deeply prosper through him. ~Isaiah 53