My mind is stuck in Haiti and I write to process, so be warned this is all over the place.  I think about Haiti as I go to sleep and immediately upon waking up.  And yet I am home now and holding my beautiful Bekah and playing with my beautiful Grace in our wonderful home and the stark comparison of those two things just baffles me.  My friend Aaron Ivey wrote an album entitled “Between the Beauty and the Chaos,” and he and his wife share a similar heart with Justin and me, and that sums up where I am.

Last night as I lay in bed trying to sleep I told Justin that it is hard for me to watch the father he is, to watch him dance with Grace while we watch Cinderella, without thinking that every girl deserves a daddy like him.  Here’s the beauty of the life we live.

Jamie and Aaron Ivey’s son, Amos, is still living in an orphanage in Haiti until his adoption is final and for the past two nights they have had to sleep with all 70 children outside because of the aftershocks and the insecurity of their damaged building.  Here is a photograph they posted.  This is the chaos of these precious children’s lives.

A few months ago one of my Compassion kids, Widline Floreal, graduated from the Compassion Program.  I received word that she had come to Christ during her time at the Project, and I prayed that she would know always that Jesus is with her.  Beautiful girl.  I hope she isn’t alone in the chaos.  I hope she’s alive.  I wonder if I’ll ever know.  I pray she knows Jesus loves her and is with her.

We have given to several organizations that are on the ground in Haiti, but it isn’t enough.  We are praying and reading the blogs and calling out to God, and I know in my mind that is more but it still feels like it isn’t enough.  I just want to bring these babies home.  I just want to gather our friends and get them all adopted – be this beautiful rainbow family of people who love Christ.  I just want to see my husband dancing with my daughters from around the world.   I want to be used by God to bring beauty into chaos.  That is why we give.  That is why we pray.  That is why we will adopt.

There is beauty.  I sincerely hope that everyone is giving something to this cause.  If the people who are tweeting links to give to a cause are actually giving, I am thrilled with the generosity we are seeing.   The tweets and blogs from people on the ground in Haiti are so incredibly moving and powerful (@troylivesay, Livesay Blog, the Real Hope for Haiti blog, the Howerton blog), people are helping in extraordinary ways (Fellowship Church Miami’s plane headed to Haiti with food and water 36 hours after the first shaking), people in Haiti are singing worship songs, reading their bible, praying, helping, coming together.  I love this.  This is what we are supposed to be about.

There is chaos.

I know that some people who are my friends are not Believers in Christ, and yet you still read what I write and I thank you for doing so.  I have hesitated to speak to the Pat Robertson comment because I sometimes feel so unwise to respond to such things, but let me simply say this.  He does not speak for me, for any authentic Believer in Christ, or for the Jesus that I read in the Bible.   Pat’s comments were chaos.  We as believers are called to be light and love to this world (Right before Jesus’ death in John 13 he told the disciples A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Pat’s representation of Christ is not love or light.  I am sorry he claims to speak for us as Believers.

If you care to read it, Donald Miller’s response to Pat’s comments was completely in line with what I feel about Pat Robertson.  I thought his words represented Beauty well.

I thought Keith Olbermann’s response to Pat’s comments were very interesting, and I didn’t know what he was responding to until I looked it up, and I was shocked at the political comments I found.  It is amazing how many people used this horrible tragedy and turned it into political fodder – yet another chance to bash our President.  I am incredibly frustrated with the 24 hour news cycle and with the nonsense it has inflicted on our country and I am frustrated with Fox News and what it has done to Christianity.  We are NOT to be known primarily, or really at all according to my Bible, for our political point of view.   Jesus lived in the time of the Roman Empire, and he never once said to “Rise up and fight, call everyone a fascist and circulate hate through email and picket and be known by your division.”  He said to “render unto Caesar what is Caesars and render unto God what is God’s.”  I’m fine if you vote Republican, so do I. I am fine if you vote for the life of the unborn.  So do I.  But when you politicize everything, including a horrible tragedy such as this situation in Haiti and use it to be hateful, disrespectful, and anything but submissive to the leadership that God has placed over you, you are sinning.  God ordains our leaders.  Look at China.  The church is exploding!  God does not need a Christian in the White House to be glorified.  Read the new Testament, the church was meant to be a subversive force in our culture.  If you are a Believer in Christ and watching Fox News (or MSNBC) and getting all fired up and hateful and divisive, if you are known for that and not for your love for people around you, you are known for the wrong thing.  I am not a sheep.  I am fully aware of what is going on in our country.  But I am not a citizen primarily of this country.  I am a citizen of the Kingdom of God and I will behave as such.  If you are spreading chaos into this world, and not spreading beauty, beware.  You might be about the wrong Kingdom’s business.  Again, I typically don’t speak to this, and you can now see why.  🙂  But this is where I am.  That junk is chaos.  And we are not to be about it.  I’ll now stop spouting my opinions on this, in case you were nervous.

Here’s the truth of where I am today. We live in a horribly fallen world.  It is simply and terribly chaos.  We were meant for another world – for heaven.  A world of beauty.  And in the in between, we are here with a purpose to give God glory and to be a light into darkness.   To bring the beauty of the next life, of peace with God, into the chaos of a fallen world. Jesus please help us to do that.  Jesus please be near to Haiti.  Jesus please hold the fatherless in the palm of your hands, and raise up fathers here with a passion to bring their sons and daughters home.  There are 140 million orphans.  Jesus please call your church to be a forever family to these sweet babies.  Please let no Christian be satisfied to be a citizen of this country.  Please call them to be a citizen of your Kingdom first and foremost.  Jesus help us where we are weak, be great when we are not, and cover over us with your grace when we are decidedly human.   To You and You alone be the glory.