Live Out Loud - Adventures of a mom

I am looking out the window from my dorm room.  There is a lot of hustle and bustle in the hallways. Everyone is excited to be getting ready to 'go home' for the first time after we started the school year. It is my first Thanksgiving here in Canada...away from home. It's the first time I really thought about that word:   home .  How interesting that you never really give it much attention when you are there, when you are home.  But once you leave it, all of a sudden a part of you is yanked out leaving it a gap, a hole, an emptiness nothing else can fill. For the first time I experienced what home-sickness  really felt like.  In a world where there is no Internet, no social media, no e-mail and not even the option of calling home.  The only way to connect with family, available to me, back then, was by writing letters. And the hope of going home is not there - I don't know when I will be back.  I didn't buy a return ticket.  I don't h...

Refugee.  n.   a person who has been forced  to leave their country in order to escape war, persecution, or natural disaster. Foreigner. n.  a person not belonging  to a particular place or group; a stranger or outsider. To live in Fear and Uncertainty I have never been a refugee so I don't know what it would be like to be one.  But I can imagine it being 1000 times worse than some of the experiences I've had in the past. A few years ago I was in the middle of the highlands in South America.  I was traveling in a 'red' area - an area where terrorists were known to go around.  I had heard stories of kidnaps in the middle of the road and the family traveling with me actually told me their saga of being taken by terrorists only to be released miraculously later on. With all of this in mind, and having lived in the capital city during the years of heavy fighting between the government and the terrorists, I had a pretty good idea...

"O  Lord , you have examined my heart  and know everything about me .  You know when I sit down or stand up.   You know my thoughts even when I’m far away.  You see me when I travel  and when I rest at home.   You know everything I do.  You know what I am going to say  even before I say it,  Lord . You go before me and follow me.  You place your hand of blessing on my head. [...] I can never escape from your Spirit!   I can never get away from your presence!  If I go up to heaven, you are there;    if I go down to the grave, you are there.  [...]  even there your hand will guide me,  and your strength will support me . You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body  and knit me together in my mother’s womb.  Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!  Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. [...] Search me, O God, and know my heart ;    test me...

Another Halloween has come and gone, and so has all the debate over whether Christians should celebrate Halloween. You either 1)  celebrate Halloween; 2)  don't celebrate it; or 3) don't know what to do about it Which one are you? I blogged about my thoughts last yea r and most of it still held true this year.  I didn't grow up in a culture that celebrated Halloween and when the holiday was imported into my country I was told that it was a demonic holiday.  I used to think (because that was what I was told) "white people" celebrated Halloween with chants to demons, with games that worshipped the Devil and by just simply being and doing "bad things".  That was what I thought as a child.   And yet, I was left with a deep sense of curiosity .  I couldn't quite understand "it".  I was curious.  But I was trained to be afraid of it.  Very afraid. By the time I grew up, I wanted to discuss these but unfortunately, I felt even qu...