Best lesson

One of the best lessons my parents gave me, was when I was about 17 or 18 years old. We went every Monday night to the back of a train station in Mexico City, and my mom prepared a nice hot meal for a big crowd. There, we waited in the dark until little by little young kids 7 to 15 years old, started to come out from the darkest spots, most of them holding a can of yellow glue sniffing it as they came to us. Every Monday they were expecting us to come and visit them. They would come and gave us the nicest hugs you'll ever receive, filled with lice and smelling as.. kids living and sleeping on the streets of Mexico City. It is the most humbling experience I ever had. It shaped a my character a lot. It is easy to remember those times when I deal with not being content.

This kids were sweet, part of them were as Innocent as any other kid, and part of them, have had more experiences in life that I will ever have. They trust like kids, and they distrust like adults, they love like kids, and they hurt like adults, they play like kids and they are abused like no person should ever be treated.

Some times, we could not find some of the young girls (ages 10 the most), and we often were told they went to Acapulco with some taxi drivers for the weekend. It was an excruciating pain to be exposed to this truth especially because you love those kids and now you knew them... we just wanted to grab them all and adopt them and force them out of there!. Other times, the girls were all bruised, because they asked their friends to hit them as hard as they can in the stomach so the could have an abortion.... and stories like these were an every Monday night end of the day for us,... beginning of a nightmare for them.

Some of them were sent to a house where a wonderful lady with the heart and love for this ministry was working hard with them, trying to keep them out of the streets. Some of them got out but others came back to this life.

We prayed for them constantly, and pray with them and told them about God and His Son, and the eternal life... and I just hope and pray today for them... I can't remember their names, but I can see their faces in my mind, even though most of them must be grown ups by now.
I wonder what it is of their lives, whether they married or not, whether they got out of the streets or not, whether they follow Jesus Christ or not.

Why am I remembering this lately?... I don't know, my heart is aching for them.. for those kids that live behind the train station now, for those kids that are sniffing glue today and for those adults that I met as kids. It is easy to forget because things go well for us, because we are not in that desperate need for food or love that we are willing to do anything to get a comfortable bed for one night and maybe a meal, or maybe just a hug.

I hope I can give my kids that experience my parents gave me at one point in their lives, I hope they will have a burden in their heart for the people who does not know the Lord, I hope the Lord give them a heart that would ache for the lost, and that they will be used for His work wherever they go. Behind a train station, in a remote area in Africa or in their neighbourhood. But that they and I will never stop thinking of the blessings we have, not as much as the material blessings which I am grateful for His mercy in giving us more than what we need, but the blessing of being part of the family of God, for the blessing of the adoption that we were part of, and for God looking down on us and having mercy on us by saving us.

And I hope, that I will one day I will see in heaven these kids that I once met at the train station.

Thank you mom and dad.

hands

This post is my dear sons request:

M is 10!!

So my son M. is 10!!. It is amazing to think that not long ago he was a baby. His favorite color since he can talk has been yellow, his smile has always been on his face, he has always been a happy and easy going boy, polite, respectful to his parents, wise, loving.... I would like to think that our parenting has helped him to be the boy he is today, but the truth is, M is a boy with an amazing personality. It has been the grace of God that gave us a boy that is easy to train and that his heart desires what is pleasing to Him. God has given him wisdom and understanding of the things that are good and he has taught me many lessons.

There are many things I could say about M, and none of them will express how proud I am to be his mom. You would just need to meet him to understand. He is less than one head shorter than me, and when he comes and still calls me mommy and gives me a hug no matter who is in front, and his prayers goes to the Lord saying: "please help me not to sin against you, and help me to please You in all I do", my heart wants to cry in gratitude to the Lord for giving me the honor to have a son like him.

I find no better joy than this: knowing that my kids walk in the truth... praise the Lord for His work in M's life. My prayer for him is the same since he was a little boy, that he will grow up to be a God fearing man.

With a very thankful heart for the gift of his life,

M...We love you!!!!

Ps. 27:4

One thing I ask of the Lord, this is what I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to seek him in his temple. Ps. 27: 4

As I am reading through some psalms, God reveals in His word as a mirror more and more of His holiness, more and more of my inability and more and more of His beauty. Often when I pray, I pray in a very self centered way. I pray for my needs, for my selfish desires, for the things that concern me at the time, and spend not as much time praying to dwell in the house of the Lord ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE. To GAZE upon the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple. My own repentance needs repentance... since I fear the consequences more than the fact that I offended my Saviour.

I love the Lord, and I love Him with all my heart, or at least that is what I think sometimes.. until I read something like this which puts me to shame, which fills me with humility and makes me see how selfish I am, how much I love myself and how little I have died to myself.

To be able to say that all I ask of the Lord is to dwell in His house all the days of the Lord, if that is all I really want... If everything can be taken away from me and yet still be able to say "that is all I ask of you", then I have died to myself. If my cries to the Lord says that all I ask of him is to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek him in his temple, then I cannot possibly need anything else. Once you have seen the beauty of the Lord and really see it, I do not think it is possible to love yourself higher than you ought to. Any beauty or desires or rights or goodness, does not even touch the goodness and beauty and holiness and righteousness and perfection of the holy God. So all is left to do is prostrate yourself before him and dwell in His place for ever and seek him.

So in the process of mortifying the sin in me and searching for my desires to be towards Him alone, looking not my own benefit or comfort, but his holiness in my life that one day I can stand before him and say: One thing I ask of you Lord, that I may dwell in your house for ever, and that I may gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and seek you in your temple.

The size of our world

My good friend H. posted this on her blog. I thought it was really nice.
http://www.rense.com/general72/size.htm