i am well invested in.

my family continuously sacrifices their time, money and energy on me. i wouldn't be where i am today without them.

my friends make my life rich. God makes my life richer. i definitely wouldn't be where i am today without them, either.

my job is a dream come true and the amazing people i work with make that statement even more valid. i get to spend my days hanging out with youth in various high schools in the GTA; i honestly can't think of a better way to spend my life than by investing in such valuable lives.

so, to all of the above: thank you. thank you for investing in me. for sticking by me. for continuously reminding me that i am indeed one of the richest women in the world. i am who i am because of you.

i had my first real crush in grade nine [that says a lot about the guys in my public school], which quickly ended the day i found him 'making out' under a tree with one of my good friends. [clearly i had shade-y friends]. so i moved on. and on. and on.

aside from the one guy i recently proposed to via facebook [disclaimer: he lives in Fiji - what's a girl to do?], my dating life hasn't moved past the crushing stage. and this month has been no different.

this hot guy [and i mean 'why didn't God make you a twin?!' kind of hot] walked into my work recently, so i did what any girl would do. i fainted. just kidding. i looked deeply into his beautiful blue eyes and wooed him with my best smile. within seconds, though, my heart shattered into a million pieces [drama much?] as i glanced at his left hand. yep, you guessed it. someone liked it and put a ring on it. oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh. [sorry, couldn't resist]. needless to say, it ended there [my crush, not his marriage], and i haven't seen him since.

that is, until he showed up in my dream one night.

so here we were sitting at the beach [and by we i mean he, his wife, their two kids and i] when all of a sudden the mrs. needs to take the kids to the bathroom. perfect, i thought. time to make my move. yes me, the one who 'would never do that'. i get out of my chair, walk towards him, and, and ... i wake up. true story.

'NO FREAKIN WAY', i thought. there's no way i would do THAT!

suddenly a thought came into my mind.

how dare i judge someone for something that i myself am capable of doing.

and how dare YOU.

now don't go tying your panties up in a knot. there's no need for you to hide yo husbands [and you certainly don't have to hide yo wives and yo kids] - they'll be no climbing in your windows here. i have no intent in kissing your man when you take your kids to the bathroom. but - get this - the very thing we are quick to judge [especially in the church] is the very thing that we are capable of doing, simply because we're human and were born into sin.

do you think david EVER thought that he was capable of sleeping with bathseba, let alone murdering her husband uriah so he wouldn't get caught? my guess is no. or how about the adulterous woman? do you think she planned on sleeping with multiple men especially knowing that the consequence was [should have been by law] being stoned to death?

or how about serial killers/sex offenders/abductors nowadays? i bet if you asked randall hopley what he wanted to be when he grew up, he wouldn't have said, "i want to kidnap children" [if in fact he even did; the whole kienan hebert story seems fishy to me], but you get the point. life does some crazy things to people. so does mental illness. tragedy. compromise.

now, let it be said that in no ways do i condone such behavior. my guess is that you don't either. BUT the pendulum shouldn't be swinging on the complete opposite side either; as much as we're not to condone murder, adultery, kidnapping, or even things 'as small as' lying and gossiping [yeah, i went there], we're not to judge either.

“Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye" [Matthew 7:1-5]

still learning,

p.

it's funny how my last post was about how it's 'not about me' and i sit here two months later wrestling with the very same statement. 

with several heart attacks and surgeries under his belt, severe diabetes and an inability to walk, my dad has needed 24 hour care for as long as i can remember. in addition to this, as most of you know, he suffered a stroke this week.  my mom, who is his primary caregiver, is recovering from the triple bypass she had a month a go; the leg they took the vein out of seems to get worse by the day, so she's in no shape to take care of my dad.

so that leaves me, their unemployed [though i prefer to say 'in between jobs'] daughter, to take care of them for a short while [hopefully a very short while] ;)

i've been here a day so far and i'm already dying of boredom. don't get me wrong, i don't mind cooking, doing dishes, laundry, grocery shopping or even cleaning up the occasional 'accident', but it's the 'in between' times that make me go borderline insane ;) 

times where we're sitting in their 400 square foot apartment watching the country music channel;  times where my parents sleep, or bicker, or times where i need to get out of the apartment but have a lack of things to do in this small town, and limited friends to do them with. 

but love takes sacrifice, doesn't it?  and surely, my parents have sacrificed more than enough for the one writing this blog. 

so here we are. day one almost complete.  thankfully, my dad seems fine and 'with it' today, and my mom, despite her horrible leg infection, is doing well also.

here's to a speedy recovery,

p. 

it's not about me.

here i was walking to the nearest tims as my group was out experiencing a different culture during our 'ethnic plunge' activity. i had been looking forward to this block of time to myself all day - better yet, all week - in fact, i needed it desperately.

so here i was, a few steps away from tims. i could smell the coffee. i could feel the caffeine rushing through my veins. i grab the door handle and ... "excuse me, ma'am, can you spare some change so i can get a drink?" i look down and notice a man in his mid 30's sitting on the ground.

"hi, sir", i said. "i don't have any change for you, but i can gladly get you a drink". he smiled., and i went in and bought him a hot chocolate.

alas, a moment to myself. ice cap in one hand, a book in the other.

"hi ma'am. you look like a nice lady. do you mind if i sit down with you?" i didn't even have to look up. i knew exactly who it was.

"of course i mind. i need time to myself do you have any idea how busy i am?", i thought. [thankfully, i have a filter].

"of course not", i said. and with that, he sat down.

for the next hour and a half, john and i got to hang out and talk about life and laugh. i felt like we knew each other forever, and i certainly walked away feeling blessed and more rejuvenated than i would have been had 'he left me alone' with my book.

i saw john again the following week as i was waiting for the subway. our eyes locked. he smiled and waved, and i walked away reminded of something i need to be reminded of each day as i serve God here at CSM Toronto:

it's not about me. [and it's not about you, either].

"each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interest of others" [philippians 2:5]

a huge part of my job is to bring awareness to issues such as homelessness, prostitution, human trafficking, drugs, and the like here in toronto [and yes, stuff like this does happen in our own backyard], but another huge part of what i do is hang out with, and invest in, the youth that come through our 'program' each week.

it's hard to believe that 5:00 p.m. marks the time of arrival for my fourth team this summer. i've had the honor of watching God work through, and in, youth from tennessee and michigan as they've stepped out of their comfort zones and served those on the margins of society; there's nothing i love more than being able to bridge the gap between the upcoming generation and the poor [both of whom are often overlooked due to different stereotypes].

every day i have the privilege of serving alongside of my group in a restaurant for the poor by the name of 'st francis' table'. here, we help prepare top of the notch meals [steak, chicken, shiskabobs, pasta, meatloaf etc] and then serve them their choice of food in true waiter/waitress style. the patrons, as we call them, pay $1/meal for dignity purposes and because of this, they come in knowing that they will be treated with respect and receive good service. after dinner service is done, we have the chance to sit down and hang out. it's in this time the youth get to see firsthand that not all patrons come in for a meal necessarily; some simply come in knowing that they'll have someone to eat with and talk to.

my mornings consist of various activities. sometimes my group and i serve at soup kitchens or at a factory for mentally disabled and ill people. sometimes i get the chance to give the youth a 'tour' around toronto's poorest neighbourhood and allow them to get more of an inside perspective of what it looks like to live in poverty and how God is at work there. and sometimes we spend our mornings handing out bagged lunches or bottled water to those who need it most [more homeless people die due to dehydration per year than by freezing to death in the winter].

as you can imagine, i have to spend a lot of time each day helping the youth and leaders [and myself] process all that they're/we're seeing/thinking/feeling, because the truth is, once saturday rolls around, reality hits; they'll no longer have a program to follow or a host to connect them to the various ministries and non profits in their city. the 'job' is now theirs; it's time for them to head home and ...

LIGHT THEIR CITY UP. [i know they will].

my heart is so full.

it's hard to believe that two weeks of training has come and gone and that i'm hours away from putting all that i've learned into practice. 3:00 marks our first official staff meeting and 5:00 marks our first team's arrival.

i've tried to sit down and pound out a blog on several occasions since i've been here, but my words have come up short. that being said, please accept my feeble attempt at putting my thoughts into words even now.

in the past two weeks, i've had the honor of partnering with several ministries/non profits here in toronto. i not only had the chance to listen to passionate people share their 'why i do what i do' stories, but i had the chance to get my hands dirty, too. my heart filled with joy as i:

- served food in several soup kitchens
- folded laundry for nearly 70 beds that provide a safe place to sleep each night for those who wouldn't have one otherwise
- helped those with a mental disability or mental illness meet their quota in a factory so that they can receive a paycheck
- wrote words of encouragement using chalk on a basketball court in the middle of one of toronto's poorest communities.

...and the list goes on.

i find myself asking people to pinch me each day [weird, i know] to see if this really is my life. and it is.

i feel so honored, so blessed.