So, I have wanted to blog lately...I really have, just every time I try, I wait too long and lose my thoughts. Well, right now, they are fresh, and I hope I can finish this post within the next 20 min..
Have you ever heard of a fistula? Well, I hadn't until this week while reading for my Women in International Health class. Basically, it is a condition that comes from obstructed labor during pregnancy. If left untreated, women lose their ability to control their "bodily functions"... that is the least graphic way I can explain it.
(PAUSE! i just looked at some pics on a friend's blog from her trip to Africa...I am going this summer no matter what it takes!)
Anyway, this condition is quite common for women in underdeveloped countries who don't have access to proper healthcare. They are basically shunned out of their society as a result of this condition (just imagine how you would smell if you were leaking bodily fluids). Their friends, families, and even spouses won't associate with them. After reading about it, we just watched a video that followed women with a fistula in Ethiopia. There, they have to have a fistula hospital separate from the normal hospital. Because of the stigma placed on these women, hospital personell won't even let them in...
Basically, I could go on and on...but my point is this....
As I sat in the classroom, I was embarassed for how bad I possibly smell. After working out at the SRC today and walking so much in the hot Arizona sun, I could just feel the dried sweat on my body and clothes. Here I was, worrying about my own body odor when there are hundreds of thousands of women in Africa and other places walking around with pee dripping down their legs...HOW INCREDIBLY MESSED UP IS THAT?! Here I am trying to wrap my head around dating and relationships, when girls my age have been forced into marriage, been pregnant, or had a fistula before my age...HOW INCREDIBLY MESSED UP IS THAT?!
All I want to say is that I am incredibly blessed, yet incredibly selfish...how many times to we take advantage of even the ability to have a conversation with friends or family without some stigma attached? How many times to we pity our petty little problems, when there are people in this world suffering from complete injustice.
Of three things I am sure:
1) This semester and this class will be trying on me emotionally, but I am extremely excited to "open up my eyes to the things unseen" and unknown to many people.
2)I am too easily wrapped up in my own little world, but I want to change that. I want to do something about the injustice in this world. I mean, who am I that I should be born into one of the wealthiest nations in the world, while so many others are forced to live in conditions that I cannot even fathom? I can't help but to do something to even the playing field...
3) God will be working on my heart this semester...I pray that he will lead me to where I can go and do justice for him, and really change this world. Lord, "show me how to love like you have loved me..."
May God be at work in your life, and may you see the many blessings you have in your life.
Peace and love,
Lisa
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Sunday, August 1, 2010
Addictions
"These ways we find to numb our aches, our longings, and our pain are not benign. They are malignant. They entangle themselves in our souls like a cancer and, once attached, become addictions that are both cruel and relentles. Though we seek them out for a little relief from the sorrows of life, addictions turn on us and imprison us in chains that separate us from the heart of God and others as well. It is a lonely prison of our own making, each chain forged in the fire of our indulgent choice. Yet, "our lovers have so intertwined themselves with our identity that to give them up feels like personal death...We wonder if it is possible to live without them" (The Sacred Romance).
We need not be ashamed that our hearts ache; that we need and thirst and hunger for more. All of our hearts ache. All of our hearts are at some level unsatisfied and longing. It is our insatiable need for more that drives us to our God. What we need to see is that all our controlling and our hiding, all our indulging, actually serves to separate us from our hearts. We lose touch with those longings that make us women. And the substitutes never, ever resolve the deeper issue of our souls." (Captivating)
When this passage mentions "lovers" or "addictions" it means things we turn to in hard times in hopes of feeling better. Mine are movies and TV shows, particularly chick flicks haha. Now, I don't see anything wrong with having a "happy place," but when that thing you turn to is merely a means to find momentary contentment, I think thats a problem. You start relying on it, expecting that it will make you feel better. It's basically a drug and, yes, an addiction. You see, these things only give us brief pleasure. Wouldn't it be so much more productive to turn that longingness for our addictions into a longingness for God? Why don't we? Why don't we find who we are in Christ, or at least how he created us to be? Because like it says up in the few paragraphs I stole, those things we rely on, that are ultimately going to fail us, are the very things that destroy our identity....
We need not be ashamed that our hearts ache; that we need and thirst and hunger for more. All of our hearts ache. All of our hearts are at some level unsatisfied and longing. It is our insatiable need for more that drives us to our God. What we need to see is that all our controlling and our hiding, all our indulging, actually serves to separate us from our hearts. We lose touch with those longings that make us women. And the substitutes never, ever resolve the deeper issue of our souls." (Captivating)
When this passage mentions "lovers" or "addictions" it means things we turn to in hard times in hopes of feeling better. Mine are movies and TV shows, particularly chick flicks haha. Now, I don't see anything wrong with having a "happy place," but when that thing you turn to is merely a means to find momentary contentment, I think thats a problem. You start relying on it, expecting that it will make you feel better. It's basically a drug and, yes, an addiction. You see, these things only give us brief pleasure. Wouldn't it be so much more productive to turn that longingness for our addictions into a longingness for God? Why don't we? Why don't we find who we are in Christ, or at least how he created us to be? Because like it says up in the few paragraphs I stole, those things we rely on, that are ultimately going to fail us, are the very things that destroy our identity....