To love at all is to be vulnerable.
Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
To love is to be vulnerable.”

-C.S. Lewis-

“If I find in myself desires nothing in this world can satisfy,
I can only conclude that I was not made for here.
If the flesh that I fight is at best only light and momentary,
then of course I’ll feel nude when to where I’m destined I’m compared.

Speak to me in the light of the dawn.
Mercy comes with the morning,
I will sigh and with all creation groan as I wait for hope to come for me.

Am I lost or just less found? On the straight or on the roundabout of the wrong way?
Is this a soul that stirs in me, is it breaking free, wanting to come alive?
Cos my comfort would prefer for me to be numb.
And avoid the impending birth of who I was born to become.

For we, we are not long here.
Our time is but a breath, so we better breathe it.

And I, I was made to live,
I was made to love,
I was made to know You

Hope is coming for me
Hope, He’s coming.”

Listen: C.S. Lewis Song – Brooke Fraser

With the Olympics all around it’s all about winning. They are about being first, being best and going for gold. It’s something that also lives in me. A heart to be a winner, to be seen, to be first. And don’t we all wanna be winners, going for the gold medal?

This heart, longing to be a winner, made it hard for me to look at my life now and find that I’m losing. These last months I’ve been losing more than before. I lost my dreams. I lost my home. I lost my relationship. I lost my self and my selfworth. I lost the strength to fight for things in life I so wanted. I lost the will to go on. I lost my joy and real laughter. I lost vision and my future. I even lost the mentality to be a winner. I didn’t even care. I felt lost and a loser. And sometimes I still so.

But in the losing, I’m losing morex85.
I’m losing my pride. I’m losing my critism on people acting weak. I’m losing being judgemental. I’m losing thinking highly of myself. I’m losing the urge to put myself above others. I’m losing fear. I’m losing ways of religion. I’m losing rules which I wrote for myself. I’m losing to try and always act strong. I’m losing being able to act like someone I am not.

And I believe I had to lose, to find something greater. Something of way more worth.
I had to lose to win.
I had to lose to win an open mind.
I had to lose to win grace for others.
I had to lose to win freedom.
I had to lose to win a new heart.
I had to lose to win a new chance.
I had to lose to see God.

LOSING became WINNING for me.
Losing brought me treasures which I wouldn’t have gain in winning alone.
I’ve learned way more for life by this lost.
Three things I didn’t lose: Faith, Hope and Love.
They kept me. God kept me.

And again I’m crazily surprised how Gods Words are always the other way around.
They sound weird at fiirst. But they are so true in the long run.
Which is good because: Life is not a sprint, but a marathon!
I so hope I will run this marathon the right way….

Not because it’s a cheap form of religious escapism.
But because it looks at reality
in the Light of One Who is REAL!
It does not consider my disposition or chances.
It considers GOD!

Ik sta te wachten op mijn collega. Hij zou er tien minuten geleden zijn, het kan vast niet lang meer duren. Dan komen er van verschillende kanten auto’s aanrijden. Er stappen een aantal mannen uit, die mij niet het meest vertrouwde gevoel geven. Tevergeefs probeer ik iemand te bereiken, maar niemand neemt op. Het wordt me al snel duidelijk dat ik geen andere keuze heb dan in één van de auto’s te stappen en met de mannen mee te gaan.

De volgende momenten zijn wat vaag, maar ik bevind me in een klein kamertje, wat wordt afgesloten met een zeil. Het ziet er niet echt gezellig uit en er is nergens daglicht te bekennen. Ik ben niet alleen, naast mij staat een ander meisje, ik ken haar niet. We horen voetstappen komen, het gordijn schuift open en we krijgen beide wat te eten en drinken. Ik heb enorme dorst en begin direct te drinken. Het meisje beseft dit te laat en waarschuwt mij dan voor de inhoud van ons drankje. Het is al te laat en ik voel me ineens heel moe worden. Opnieuw hoor ik voetstappen komen en het gordijn gaat weer open. “Kom jij maar het eerste uur mee, jij ziet er wel klaar uit.” En ze wijzen naar mij. Een beetje verdwaasd loop ik mee, maar het duurt niet lang voordat ik besef waar ik terecht ben gekomen….
Ik wil niet, voel me bang, mijn maag keert zich om en alle hoop vliegt weg. Ik wil weg hier..

Ik doe mijn ogen open…..
Ik wel. Ik droomde dit. Al kwam het ineens heel dichtbij vanochtend. Ik kon weg uit deze situatie, in één ogenblik. Maar ik besefte me ineens zo, dat voor zoveel meiden, jonge vrouwen, maar ook kinderen dit geen droom is, maar realiteit. Gedrogeerd, verward, angstig en kapotgemaakt.

Ik hoor hun vraag aan mij, aan ons door mijn hoofd:
“If you knew all the time about me, why didn’t you come any sooner?”

The A21 Campaign – BECAUSE

In this worls you will have trouble,
but take heart, I have overcome the world!
(John 16:33)

So many times I feel so hopeless.
So many times I feel so inadequate.
So many times things can feel so meaningless.
So many times, I don’t know how it can ever be right again.

But there’s always Hope!

So take heart
Let Love lead us through the night
Hold on to hope
And take courage again

Yes, take heart and take courage!

“We cannot for a moment forget the fact of around 21.000 children dying every day.”
Can we not? I can…. unfortunately I forget most of the time.
While I even had the chance to hold and feed some of these children.
Wondering how may of them didn’t make it till today.

How can I forget? What if it was my own child?
What if I was the mother who wouldn’t be able to feed my child?
What if I knew my little one wouldn’t make it to the next day?
What a difference could someone make with money, food and love…

I am that somebody. I have enough. I have money, food and love.
I have more than enough. I think I even have too much.
But then still. Why won’t the next 21.000 make it till tomorrow?

Maybe because I’m too busy decorating my new home.
I’m spending hours in the shopping mall, finding stuff to put in my home.
Or because I’m too busy wondering what to wear with Christmas.
Because I’m trying to live according to that standard this side of the world is putting up.
Because…….

What will we do?
Will we let them die away.
And as they fade from memory, their lives remain the same.

What would the world look like if we didn’t see each others faces, clothes, figure, jewelery, haircut or color of skin? What if we looked straight into each others hearts? No impressive behavior, glamorous looks or well build bodies. But all you could see was my heart. And I saw yours. I know for sure you would approach me differently. And probably I would too.

You would be able to see all my insecrurities, my victories and losses, my fear, my bitterness, my deepest desires, my love, my pain, my joy, my ugly selfishness.
You would see the real me.

I have to remember that true beauty actually comes from my and your heart.
I know that if we try to be the skinniest, strongest, tannest, tallest, or the sexiest, we would never feel totally satisfied. I know this, because I tried and sometimes still do.
God tells me He finds worth in what’s in my heart and yours.My worth isn’t in my outward appearance and how much people like or dislike me. My worth is found in Jesus, Who loved me so much that He died for me. It’s Jesus Who sees my heart and heals it. His Words, His Truth, His Love never fails and always restores, builds up and satisfies!

Because Jesus looks at me this way I want to learn to see people that way too!
To see them for who they really are. Their value, their pain, their love, their desires, their fears, their dreams. For I know, in the end we all want to be known! We all want to be seen. We all want to be real. Do we give each other room to be known? Let’s start today.
Look at the heart. See people.

Knowing Him is knowing yourself.
Knowing God is finding the purpose for your life.
Knowing Who’s you are (His!) means understanding who you are.
Knowing all He is ,the always more, is finding Life.

In Knowing Him I found Life.

To be honest, I’m always hoping to witness some kind of miracle. The miracle of someone being healed, rain to come or stop as I pray, stars to shoot when I ask for it, circumstances to change in a miraculous way. You name it! It’s the signs and wonders that I am (and I think many people with me) looking for to be able to really believe there is a God. And I hope by experiencing this, my faith will maybe even grow stronger. We want to see to believe!

But lately my own life’s set of circumstances brought me to the realization that the biggest miracle of all is not in one of these!
Yes, I believe God as Creator can move mountains.
Yes, I believe He, as The Beginning and End, can stop time.
Yes, I believe (and witnessed) He can bring rain in places or tell it to stop.
But these three things are created without an own will. They don’t just decide by themselves to move from left to right, to fall today or tomorrow.
They are subjected to the Laws of Nature. (Which is a miracle on itself already! Who could ever come up with those!?!) God can easily ‘break into’ those.

The heart of men on the other hand is not subjected to any set of rules or force, but our own will. We have a free choice and we can make decisions for ourselves. We decide what we open our hearts to. We decide where we listen to. We decide how we want to react on things. We decide who we share our heart with and who we give our heart to. We have a free will!

The Bible speaks a powerful truth about the heart to us:
“Keep your heart with all diligence,
For out of it is the wellspring of life.”
(Proverbs 4:23)

The heart is our spring of life!
Squeezed by the circumstances of life, we will often find out what really lives in our hearts. Which motives drive us to live our life the way we live it. (Fear, pride, jealousy, anger, love for self.) At the very moment circumstances begin to pressure our heart, we can choose to ask God to change the circumstances. But I learned we can also choose to be still for a moment and take a look what’s really inside our hearts.

Because the most precious miracle I’ve experienced is the change of one’s heart!
God didn’t change my circumstances the time I asked Him…..
He was aiming at something far more miraculous: the change of my heart!
Which is of way more value then any miracle I can think of! Even though I’m longing for circumstances to be changed, He’s aiming for my heart, for He knows what it’s worth! It’s a strong, precious and worthy weapon in my future life as it comes.

The change of heart will make me able to move the mountains in my life.
The change of heart will do greater healing on the inside than can ever be done the outside.
The change of heart will make you and me like welcomed rain in the life of those who’s heart became dry land.
The change of heart will make us like a shooting star in the life of others.

The change of heart is the greatest prove of God’s love working among us to me!