A Psalm for the Dark Days

It was one of those days, he was tired of the maze, 
Struggling in the mud and the mire.

That was the day I just happened to get in his way.

This Wednesday over at CMADDICT, I did something a little different for this week's devotional. I've been cleaning out my office this last week, and I ran across some song lyrics I wrote years ago. I'm sharing them with you in the hope it will encourage you on your dark days.

Life beats us up and wears us out. The temptation to pass our frustrations and anger on to others is powerful. What do we do on those days when we give into the darkness?

Click here for this week's devotional offering: Slightly Obsessed: A Psalm for the Dark Days.

Caregiverlist Summer Photo Contest Awards Gift Certificates and T-Shirts Share Your Photos and Be Entered to Win + Vote for the Winner

Today I've been asked to share with my readers an opportunity to enter a photo contest sponsored by caregiverlist.com. They're giving away Amazon gift cards and t-shirts to those submitting the best pictures. Here's your chance to share that great pic and win. If you're a caregiver and submit a picture of yourself and your senior clients or family members, be sure you have permission to share their photo.

Caregivers provide much more than just assistance to seniors, often becoming the emotional support for their senior clients as they continue to confront the process of aging.

Caregiverlist, the career and training center for professional senior caregivers, announces a summer photo contest to honor professional caregivers.  

Caregivers, Certified Nursing Aides, and Certified Home Health Aides may submit a photo of themselves with a senior client to the Caregiverlist Summer Photo Contest for Senior Caregivers. The contest starts Monday, July 8, 2013, and runs through Saturday, August 31, 2013. Winners will be announced before Labor Day. The Caregiverlist Facebook page hosts the contest.

Contest winners will be chosen based on popularity via voting.  Caregiverlist will award $100, $50 and $25 Amazon gift cards to the top 3 voted pictures and free t-shirts to the runners-up.

Photo submissions that feature some creativity and uniqueness will bring competition to this contest. Caregiverlist expects that the caregivers, Certified Nursing Aides and Certified Home Health Aides who submit “fun” photos will gain more votes. Those who submit photos should share their photo across social networks and with friends and family to encourage more voting.

Caregivers may submit their photo on Facebook and vote for caregiver and senior photo submissions here.

Caregivers also may always submit a job application on Caregiverlist to be considered for part-time, full-time and live-in caregiving jobs and find online caregiver training.

Good luck!

Caregiverlist.com

Lost in Space

The earth reels to and fro like a drunkard

And it totters like a shack,

For its transgression is heavy upon it,

And it will fall, never to rise again.

-Isaiah 24:20

They were intrepid. They were bold. They wandered space encountering monstrous aliens and fearsome worlds. The story line in the old sci-fi television series Lost in Space was as cheesy as the aliens, but it fed the new interest in the world above us ignited by the space race. This theme was revisited on a slightly more sophisticated level with the Star Trek series Voyager.

No trip to outer space has yet revealed signs of the Borg, though, but instead has offered us a breathtaking glimpse into the expansive mind of God. High above our heads, planets spin at God's command; the sun blazes at exactly the right distance to sustain life on Earth; the constellations and nebulae thrill us with their serene beauty. The only dastardly creatures to roam the galaxies are the unseen leagues under the command of Satan.

Even then, the skies hold little interest for them. 

After all, the battle is here, on Earth, the only piece of God's real estate actually lost in space. While the universe whirls obediently at His word, our planet alone lurches headlong toward destruction as its inhabitants brazenly moon their Creator. The angels watch in amazement, the demons cackle in amusement, and creation longs for the day the rebellion is finished.

Earth was created to be the best of God's work, a blue jewel in the crown of the King. But our sins rained down death upon our heads and a curse that could only be broken by royal intervention. And intervene, He did. God is at work in our world, redeeming a people for Himself and displaying the majesty of His grace to His entire realm.

It may not look like it, but each day brings us closer to rescue. At precisely the right moment, Christ will return to deliver His people, end the rebellion, and restore the planet to its intended glory.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly,

but because of Him who subjected it,

in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption

into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.

And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit,

even we ourselves groan within ourselves,

waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons,

the redemption of our body.

-Romans 8:19-23

Today those who trust in the Lord Jesus wait for Him, aliens trapped aboard a toxic rocket hurtling through space as nations battle to throw off the final restraints to all-out lawlessness. The world appears to be running into the fire. A conflagration is coming, but the Lord Jesus has given us a powerful promise:  

Take courage; I have overcome the world. -John 16:33  

God, we are told, is the Blessed Controller of all things. Nothing surprises Him, and nothing is beyond His power. We are safe in His hands, and we will be delivered. We are not lost in space. With our eyes on those beautiful heavens from which our Redeemer will appear, we say with the Apostle:

We are looking for new heavens and a new earth,
in which righteousness dwells. - 2 Peter 3:13

No Robots Allowed

It clanked unceremoniously as it goose-stepped around the living room, a silver contraption of motors and noise. Occasionally it stopped and lowered its jaws as it emitted a metallic bark.

Could this metal contraption earn our love? Click this link and head on over for this Wednesday's devotion:
Slightly Obsessed: No Robots Allowed.

Learning to Smile

We met in the cabinet aisle at a DIYer store. We talked there for probably an hour. I've lived her desperation. I understand her pain.

What do we do when we can't escape the rain? Click this link: Slightly Obsessed: Learning to Smile

Hungry

Just when I think I have this relationship with God down, He comes roaring into my heart, a silent howl reminding me that the God-shaped hole inside is not a box but an ever-expanding universe. If you're feeling as dry and hungry as I am these days, click this link: Slightly Obsessed: Hungry and join me at for the weekly devotional.

Zayden's Promise

Ange Movius was on the same youth ministry team as my son Kevin when he fell and broke his neck in 1997. We had not really connected, though, until recently, when I had some portraits made for my next book. When I checked out her website, I stumbled upon a page entitled "Zayden's Promise," which offered bereavement portraits and posted the testimony of Angie Smith, wife of Selah founder and singer Todd Smith. I watched the tender video celebrating the life of their child Audrey, touched by their reverence for God and their love for the child that went to be with Him. In an age when millions of babies are routinely disposed of, it was like taking in a holy breath of fresh air, bathed in life.

Loving the children.
Worshiping the Giver.
Trusting in forever.

I was so moved by Ange's anointed photos that I just had to know the story behind the story. She has graciously consented to share her heart for these little ones and their grieving families, and why she does what she does. 


What inspired you to start Zayden’s Promise?
A good friend of mine, Tanya, was pregnant with Zayden the same time I was pregnant with my second child. We connected over our pregnancy, and when Zayden was born and then passed away, it was so close to me because it could’ve just as easily been my baby.

I felt so helpless and like I wanted to do something to help, and I also felt survivor's guilt, that my baby had survived and hers hadn’t. I avoided talking to her for a few months- it was so hard to face her with my baby in my arms and hers in the grave. Eventually, I wrote her a card and poured my heart out to her.

I avoided saying things like, “Sorry for your loss.” I’ve always thought that if I went through something like that, I’d want people to acknowledge my baby, that he was a person, that he lived, that he was more than just a “loss.” I sent her a mix CD along with the card with songs that brought me hope and said that music has always helped me in times of darkness and when I needed healing.

She didn’t say anything at the time, but months later she connected with me and told me the card and the CD meant the world to her. She referred me to the story of Angie Smith and how she walked through her pregnancy knowing at the end her baby would die. (Read Angie and Todd's story at  http://angiesmithonline.com/2008/01/the-beginning-of-the-story/ )

I stayed up all night reading Angie’s story and weeping. When I got to the part about Audrey’s birth, and saw beautiful portraits done by a professional photographer, I knew that was what I was supposed to do. That’s how I could be God’s healing hand in people’s lives right in the middle of the chaos of grief, bringing a glimpse of His hope.

Tanya has been so gracious as to hold my hand along the way. Through the things that scared me, the things that made me want to weep and run away, she’s stood behind me and reminded me what God has called me to do, and that He always provides strength in the darkest of times.





"I always cradle them to my chest
and treat them like they were my 
own baby - not a body, but a person."  




What has been the most poignant moment you’ve experienced in your work with families who have lost or are losing a loved one?

It’s always hard, but there are a few times that my heart was just ripped out and I grieved so deeply for these families. I know that God has allowed me to feel just a touch of the pain so that I can be in prayer for them. I’ve spent nights weeping my guts out and praying for these families. God has been so good, though, as to let me always hold it together when I’m working with the families at the hospital. It isn’t easy to cradle a body and to not at times feel afraid or sickened. 

It’s always the hardest when the babies are full term. They are perfect, beautiful, and so very heartbreaking.  Once, I was getting ready to walk in to photograph a couple with their baby and I heard the wife say to her husband, “God is with us, even in this. I don’t know why we have to have this happen, nothing like this has ever happened to us, but God will carry us through this.” That moment ministered to me so much, seeing the way God’s hope makes such a difference in the grief process.

Sometimes, when the babies have just been born, and they are soft and still warm and their skin is loose and wrinkly, and they feel so very alive, and like if you just blew breath into them they would come back, those are the hardest. It’s harder to separate my emotions from the moment or to be in denial that this is a little person. I always cradle them to my chest and treat them like they were my own baby - not a body, but a person.

What have you learned along the way?
Since losing Zayden, Tanya and her husband Jeremiah loved and lost a baby girl, Halliee, and I had to walk through a time of not understanding and being very angry at God, feeling like He dropped the ball. Halliee in my mind was supposed to be their miracle, the promise after the pain, and I couldn’t understand why God had “failed” them.

I imagine that is just a small taste of what my families feel. He was gracious enough to walk me through that time, helping my heart to be at peace with it, and being ok with that I may not understand everything that happens here this side of heaven. Haillee would’ve been the same age as my youngest, and Zayden would’ve been the same age as my second child, and I often find myself looking at them and thinking, “I wonder what they would’ve been like? I wonder what my life would’ve been like if I had lost my babies?”

Did you have any preconceived notions about death that have changed? About life?
Death is quick moving and harsh, once someone is gone there is no holding them back from death, as much as you might never want to let go. Photographing these babies and families is a constant reminder of how precious and uncertain life is. I’m reminded to really enjoy the moments we have and how life without God’s hope is a very dark place to be.

Something Tanya has always said to me is that anytime you can invite Jesus into someone’s grief, that is what makes all the difference in the world.

How has Zayden’s Promise increased your faith in God?

I now understand how quick this life is, and how God cares so much about us spending eternity with Him. He is willing to let us walk through darkness and pain if it allows us to be drawn to Him.

Ange Movius is the creative mind behind Ange Movius Photography, established in 2005 and located in the Lewis-Clark Valley of Northern Idaho. Her husband Trav is a vital team member, and they are the parents of three awesome children. Her non-profit program, Zayden's Promise, offers free infant bereavement photos and portraits for terminally ill children.

Click these links to see more of Ange's work:
Ange Movius Photography
Ange's Blog

In the War for Independence, Who Will Be Their Voice?

Learn to do good;

Seek justice,
Reprove the ruthless;
Defend the orphan,
Plead for the widow.
Isaiah 1:17 NASB

A heat wave has gripped the nation as the United States celebrates Independence Day. In the midst of withering triple-digest temperatures, a cold wind blows. The chill is coming from the icy fingers of death...the death, that is, of compassion.  

On July 4th of every year we cheer the American Revolution, committed to the radical notion that every human is equal in the eyes of his Creator and deserving of the most basic of freedoms: 

Life.
Liberty.
The pursuit of happiness.

How ironic that the end stage of such a war would, over two hundred years later, those three essential rights would come with asterisks, that the basic foundation stones for our society would be moved at will by those to whom we have charged the defense of our nation.

Today life is only granted for those who are deemed wanted or useful to society. Disabled, defective, or incomplete humans have no place in Darwin's brave new world of the survival of the fittest. As medical resources have become more scarce, we are already in the process of moving quietly toward allocating care to those most likely to benefit from it in restored contribution to society. 

The tenets of liberty and the pursuit of happiness have also been perverted to legalize perversion and squash religious freedom. The long slide down this slope began decades ago, when we began throwing innocence in the trash along with unborn babies, nativity scenes, and school prayer. 

I've been there. I've seen it. Nearly twenty years ago, I was fighting to keep the doctor from making my disabled mother die because, in his words, "Her life is worthless." This was not a woman in a coma, but simply crippled and silenced by strokes. 

When she first knew something was going wrong in her body, she told me, "Pam, give me every chance to live." When the time came to give her that chance, the doctor didn't even ask what she would want. She was worthless, no longer counted.

Sixteen years ago, I was fighting to keep the doctor from pulling the plug on our son after his spinal cord injury. Kevin also wasn't in the mood to die, but that doctor didn't ask his opinion, either. Evidently, he no longer counted in the economy of life.

One fight occurred in America; one in Canada; but both were part of the deliberate parade toward exterminating those who do not fit our definition of "useful." This march transcends nations, politics, and administrations. It's not being orchestrated by doctors, nurses, or even politicians. It's the heavy boot step of an unseen enemy with one goal: to destroy all humanity and thus hurt and rob the Creator who made us.

He's found plenty enough help from us. Our society is sick; in fact, our world is sick. As we fall collectively farther and farther from God, the compassion and care for others that naturally flows from His heart falls with it. Life no longer has dignity by virtue of being. The body is no longer considered the temple of a living soul, but a glob of throbbing tissue and random brain waves. Life itself is open to interpretation.

It's all been complicated by the advance of medical technologies that have blurred the lines between living and dying. When to give up has become harder and harder to decide. I understand the pain endured by many families in making the tough medical decisions necessary for their sick and injured loved ones.

This isn't about those issues.

This is about speaking for those without either voice or choice. It's about remembering that we are made in the image of of the great I AM; valued because we are. It's about those with power using that power to protect the powerless. No one should have to prove that they can be useful on order to deserve life. 

No one but God has the right to give and take life. Nor does anyone have the right to decide who is worthy of our care. The more I learn about what is being done today in the name of medicine, the more I mourn, and the more I determine this:

For those without a voice: I must speak.
For those whose limbs are silent, I will, by the grace of God, be their hands and feet.
To a hurting world, I long, with all my heart, to be the expression of His comfort.

America, America, as we celebrate this birthday, may God shed His grace on us, the undeserving.