Her Voice & Our Next Steps, April 2014

Traditional Rwandan dancers

April 2014
 
She has no voice. Awful things have been done to her, but she has no voice. It’s not just that the system does not give her a voice, which is very often true here, as judges and prosecutors give very little weight to the testimony of sexually abused minor girls. It is that she simply does not have the ability to speak. You see, she was born with a disability such that she has never been able to talk.  

Anna with some of the IJM staff ladies

Her neighbor knew she could not talk. One day, as she was going to get water for her family (there is no indoor plumbing in most houses here), he grabbed her and raped her. He knew she could not tell her family or anyone else who had done it to her. She might point at him, but what proof was that? He would go free. She has no voice.

A few months later, however, she realized she was pregnant. When her guardian noticed, she asked the girl who had done this to her. She pointed at the neighbor. The police arrested him but then let him free because what evidence did they have? She has no voice. 

After her baby was born, a prosecutor asked IJM to assist in making sure DNA samples were taken from the girl, her baby and the neighbor. The neighbor was no fool; he ducked every request to come and give his DNA sample. But, the prosecutor and IJM were relentless, eventually getting a warrant and forcing him to come and give a sample.

Two months later, the DNA test funded by IJM showed with near certainty that the neighbor was the father of the girl’s baby. She has no voice, but the prosecutor, IJM and science spoke for her. 

In February 2014, a judge found the neighbor guilty and sentenced him to prison for life. In the meantime, IJM is teaching the girl sign language so that she can communicate with those closest to her and providing her and her child with social services so that she is less vulnerable to further abuse. She has no voice, but she is learning to communicate, and until she can do so on her own we have been blessed to speak for her.

                                    ________________________________________

Lane hiking down a volcano in Rwanda

A Personal Note

I pray all is well with you. This week marks three and a half years for our family in Rwanda (four and a half total in Africa!). It has been a time of stretching and blessing, hardship and fun, difficulty and great joy, and we are so thankful for this opportunity and your partnership in it. We have decided it is time to move on, however. 

As of June 13, I will leave my role as IJM Rwanda field office director.  

We do not yet know what is next (or where) but we are looking forward to a couple months this summer in Dallas and Austin to decompress, rest and pray about what is next. 

I leave IJM with great thankfulness for my team, our clients and the amazing privilege it has been to serve with such a passionate, fun, godly and professional group of people, in Rwanda, DC and around the world. Though I am leaving IJM, I will always be an advocate and supporter of the work – it is too important, too urgent and too close to God’s heart to ever really leave it. I hope you all will remain active supporters and advocates of IJM as well.

Our plan is to land back in Dallas on June 24, spend a couple weeks with our families, then head to Colorado for a week-long missionary debrief (kids included), and trips to see great-grandparents in Baytown and friends in Austin.  We look forward to spending time with you all soon.

Blessings from Rwanda, 

The Mearskats
Lane & Anna
Caleb 11, Abby 8, Luke 5, Joshua 2

Mears Family - March 2014 in Kigali, Rwanda

Mama Brigitte

We are so proud to work with people like Mama Brigitte. The IJM Rwanda office is full of people like her, all amazing, all with stories of faith, and all serving God through their work.

IJM Rwanda Social Worker's Story as a Genocide Survivor Helps her Bring Healing to Others

Posted on the IJM.org website

Apr. 11, 2014

 

Brigitte, on the left, with Baraka, IJM Rwanda Director of Aftercare

KIGALI, RWANDA – Brigitte takes a deep breath and smiles as she speaks. Always warm and quick to laugh, it’s clear she loves what she does. As a social worker with IJM Rwanda, Brigitte helps children and their families process trauma and find restoration after sexual violence.

“I give all my time to hear their stories. Telling and sharing is part of healing.”

This month, the world remembers the twenty-year anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Brigitte survived the violence that devastated her country, and she has seen firsthand the very worst that people can do to one another. She has also seen how people can help one another heal.

Her tone of voice steadies and she chooses her words carefully when asked what she hopes the watching world will see as eyes turn back to her country:

“I would like the world to know that hope is the tree that has grown courage, sacrifice and resilience in Rwanda.”

A Moment of Grace
Brigitte’s memory of the genocide in her nation is sharp. She turned on the radio one April morning to hear that the President’s plane had crashed. The shocking news was interrupted by reports of unrest and warnings to stay home. She and her husband had been married less than year, and she was eight and a half months pregnant.

Later that same morning, men wearing masks and wielding machetes and knives burst through the doors of their small home.

They ordered Brigitte and her husband outside, commanding the newlyweds to lie down and be killed.

Suddenly, a voice cried out.

It was a 15-year-old homeless boy from their neighborhood. Brigette’s husband used to buy him meals and would stop and chat with him.

Though he was with the armed men, the homeless boy begged them to spare the life of this couple, offering his own life in their place. The boy’s courage saved Brigitte and her husband that day.

Raised from Death
In the weeks that followed, 800,000 Rwandans were killed. Entire families were murdered at once, women were systematically raped, and churches became mass gravesites. Neighbors turned on neighbors, and refugees fled the country in droves.

Brigitte gave birth to a baby girl in the midst of the violence and chaos. She named the little girl Anny. The city was running out of food and water, and they subsisted off of porridge. “That was a very difficult moment in my life. How was my baby supposed to survive?”

A couple months later, the same homeless boy who had saved their lives showed up again. He told Brigitte and her husband it was time to leave Rwanda—they were the target of an upcoming attack, and this time he would not be able to stop it. Brigitte strapped two-month-old Anny to her back, and they set out on foot. They walked for more than a week. It was painful and terrifying.

They escaped dangerous roadblocks and finally crossed the border into Congo. Miraculously, Brigitte’s fragile family stayed alive. When she remembers those summer weeks in Congo, she says, “It was there God raised us from death.”

Going Home to Hard Questions
Brigitte and her husband returned to Rwanda on August 13, 1994. It was the day before their one-year wedding anniversary. The destruction of her country and loss in her own family was unfathomable. Half her siblings were killed. Her parents were missing. Her friends and colleagues and neighbors—gone.

“Why did I survive? This was my main question. No one could give me an answer. Two months later I found my dad’s body. He was completely naked—no clothes at all.”

Brigitte felt hollow inside, filled with little but grief and anger. She says, “Life was nothing for me. I stopped going to church because people had been killed in churches by Christians. Christians killed other Christians!”

Over the next few years, Brigitte slowly started sharing her questions with an older man who she views as an uncle. “He took time to listen to me. He would not interrupt me when I started to talk. I realized that talking is good if you have someone who gives you the time.”
Brigitte started praying and attending church again. She did not find all of the answers, but she knew that she was not alone with her questions.

Brigitte, pictured in the background. She has helped Mimi,* a survivor of sexual violence, process her trauma and plan for a safe future. Brigitte helped Mimi take tailoring classes so she could earn an income doing something she loves and make a living to support her daughter.

Hearing People Talk
“I decided to give my time to hear people who need to talk,” Brigitte explains. She went back to school to become a social worker. Brigitte joined IJM’s aftercare team in 2008. She counsels children who have survived sexual assaults and helps their families understand their trauma and provide a safe and sustainable home.

Brigitte says the first step in her job is always to show compassion: “They cannot tell their story without compassion.” She develops specialized treatment plans to meet each child’s holistic needs, and she provides trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy.

Brigitte challenges herself to keep learning and growing so she can give her clients the best services possible. She got her MBA while working in 2010, so that she could help families start income-generating projects and small businesses.

The Power of Hope
Brigitte knows that healing is a process—for her country, and for the children she works with on a daily basis. Her unique ability to empathize and the trauma-focused training she has received through her work at IJM allows Brigitte to impart hope through her job.

“[After the genocide] it was hard to understand how God let people down like that. But talking to other people helped me to have hope, to look in front of me not behind me, and to be able to say God is always God. To have hope in God.”

She pauses, then continues, “If I’m a survivor, it is God-made.”

Read Mimi’s story (on the IJM website) to meet one of the survivors of sexual violence who is now thriving with care and counseling from Brigitte and the IJM Rwanda team.

Also, here on our family blog almost exactly a year ago. Click here. 

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20th Anniversary of the Rwandan Genocide

Dear Friends, 

Here in Rwanda, today is a national holiday, a day of remembrance. I would like to share with you some of the things I am reading tonight as I reflect and learn about what happened then and what is happening now. Please take a moment to pray for the country of Rwanda and please take a moment to learn about what happened and what we can do to prevent things like this from ever happening again.  

Anna

 

Gary Haugen, IJM's founder standing in a Rwandan church

From International Justice Mission, the organization we are serving here in Rwanda, was started because of what happened here in Rwanda 20 years ago. I am so proud of my husband, Lane Mears for working for IJM and standing up for justice in this country.:

Today marks the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide. Gary Haugen, who was there as the lead UN investigator, realized the victims’ need wasn’t food or microloans, but for “someone to restrain the hand with the machete—and nothing else would do.” He founded IJM soon after. As we look back 20 years, we remember those who were lost and hope for an end to violence even today.

Nyamata Church

A great note written by our friend and a political officer here in Rwanda:

On April 6, 1994, an airplane carrying the Rwandan president was shot down over Kigali. On April 7 - twenty years ago today - extremist Hutu government and militia leaders began executing one of the fastest and most devastating genocides in all of history, killing one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus, or about 20% of the country's population, in just one hundred days.

Unlike genocides perpetrated primarily by governments, Rwanda's leaders twenty years ago called upon Hutu citizens to slaughter their Tutsi neighbors, friends, and family members. Many who opposed or resisted the call to genocide were also killed, regardless of their ethnic group.

On April 10, ten thousand Tutsis from Nyamata gathered in the Catholic church, seeking safe haven from the wave of death engulfing their village. The church would become their final resting place, as the interhamwe militia and neighbors breached the fortified walls, first throwing grenades into the sanctuary and then entering to kill survivors with machetes, spears, and blunt force. Babies and children were not spared, as the attackers smashed them against the wall of the sanctuary.

Today, Nyamata church and the 45,000 people buried there remind us of the horror of genocide which began 20 years ago and continued for 100 days, ending when the Rwandan Patriotic Front defeated the forces of the former government, military, and genocidal militias.

Today, Rwanda's people have not allowed themselves to be defined by their past, building a nation that is a beacon of peace, stability, and growth in an often troubled region. Rather than seek vengeance for the crimes committed during the genocide, Rwanda has undertaken a process of national reconciliation, seeking to set aside the ethnic labels that divided the country in order to move forward as one nation and one people.

Today, we and all of Rwanda's friends pause to remember those whose lives were lost twenty years ago, to stand in solidarity with the survivors, and to promise to work together to continue the miraculous transformation of this country from a place of despair to one of forgiveness, reconciliation, and hope.

A picture and note by the father of one of the girls in Abigail's grade 3 class, who I believe this is his family:


Today, I will walk to remember the Million + lives lost during the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsis of Rwanda. This is 1 family which is all gone save 1 person because absent from Rwanda. I mourn all the lives lost to this abomination, especially the families, which are left with no 1 to tell.

From the official remembrance website (www.kwibuka.org):

Kwibuka means ‘remember’ in Kinyarwanda, Rwanda’s language. It describes the annual commemoration of the 1994 Genocide against the Tutsi.

More than one million Rwandans died in the hundred days of the genocide. It was one of human history’s darkest times. Twenty years later we, Rwanda, ask the world to unite to remember the lives that were lost.

We ask the world to come together to support the survivors of the genocide, and to ensure that such an atrocity can never happen again – in Rwanda or elsewhere.

Kwibuka20 is a series of events taking place in Rwanda and around the world. These events lead up to the national commemoration of the genocide in Rwanda, which begins on 7 April 2014. The genocide began on 7 April 1994.

Kwibuka20 is also a time to learn about Rwanda’s story of reconciliation and nation building.
 

A New York Times article with powerful photography and stories of reconciliation:

The people who agreed to be photographed are part of a continuing national effort toward reconciliation and worked closely with AMI (Association Modeste et Innocent), a nonprofit organization. In AMI’s program, small groups of Hutus and Tutsis are counseled over many months, culminating in the perpetrator’s formal request for forgiveness.

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/04/06/magazine/06-pieter-hugo-rwanda-portraits.html?smid=fb-nytimes&WT.z_sma=MG_POR_20140404&bicmp=AD&bicmlukp=WT.mc_id&bicmst=1388552400000&bicmet=1420088400000&_r=3


From Isaiah 65:

"Behold I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his days...They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit..."

Never Again.

Runaway Client - Urgent Prayers Needed!

The IJM Rwanda staff hears the abuse cases of children everyday, this is what they do. This is the work God has called them to do. I, however, am not an attorney or a social worker or a law enforcement specialist, so I am not in the office with them everyday. God has called me to a different season right now, of raising our four children and keeping our home running while living overseas. I go up to the office for staff devotion occasionally, which I love. 

The Rwandan staff of about 20 sings together, mostly in Kinyarwanda, have a time of devotion from the Bible and lastly, share prayer requests for clients, legal court cases, and pressing things for that day.  Two weeks ago, when I was there for devotion, one of the staff shared that a client, Martine*, was pregnant and had run away from home. More importantly, her due date was coming up VERY soon and the staff were concerned about her. No one had seen her in months until just recently... 

When the staff shared the prayer request for the Rwandan teenager, my heart was captured. I wanted to know the details; I wanted to know more about her case.  My friend Amanda was also there that day for devotion and wrote about Martine’s story. Here is the story….

Instead of attending school and playing with friends like other fourteen-year old girls, Martine suffered regular terror and abuse from a man in her neighborhood. He regularly beat her and raped her, and she eventually became pregnant. When her pregnancy became apparent, she came to IJM looking for help.

IJM came alongside the authorities and eventually, the perpetrator was arrested, tried, convicted and sentenced. Martine successfully completed trauma counseling and gave birth to a healthy baby boy. IJM helped her go to school.  She lived with her mother, who is HIV positive, and her young siblings. Case closed, right?

If only life was that easy. Martine began to have conflict with her mother. It started as typical issues between a mother and a teenager, but due to the trauma suffered by Martine and the challenges of being a young mother, it quickly escalated, and she ran away from home, leaving the baby with her mother. Three months later, Martine’s brother found her and brought her home.

Eventually Martine made a plan to kill herself and her baby, believing it to be the only way to find relief from her pain.  Thanks be to God, she was unsuccessful, but the demons remained.

IJM helped her to be admitted to a mental health hospital and receive additional counseling and continued to help Martine’s mother to care for the baby. Martine agreed to enter a boarding school and vocational training program to try and better her circumstances, but after two weeks in the program she disappeared, telling the school authorities that she was pregnant again.

She disappeared last fall. Just a few weeks ago, Martine reappeared when someone saw her at a local Kigali hospital scheduling the birth of her new baby. Martine is scheduled for a surgery to deliver the baby on March 25, 2014.

Meanwhile, Martine’s mother continues to care for her first baby, Henri, who is now almost two years old. Mama Martine is quite ill due to her HIV status and weak from caring for the young child and her other children without any other family support. Despite her weakness, Mama Martine continues to fight for her family. Worried that she may need to care for another baby in the near future, she may seek to have Henri adopted by a Rwandan family. With IJM’s help, she is determined to start a business to help support her family.

The story isn’t over yet. Would you pray for Martine with us?

Hello. This is Anna again. Well, TODAY is the day scheduled for her child’s birth!  Yes, today! Please stop and pray right now, wherever you are. Pray for this teenage girl, who is probably scared and unsure of her future. I pray for her mental and physical health as she prepares to give birth.

Please pray that the IJM staff would find Martine today. Pray for a safe delivery for mom and a healthy baby.  Pray that God will show Martine His love for her through us.  Let IJM be the hands and feet of Jesus, to bring a hope and a future. Pray that Martine will turn to God as her savior and protector.

Pray for this family to be reunited. Also, pray for Mama Martine and her health as she cares for Martine’s toddler son.

               “But while he was still a long way off, 

                  his father saw him and felt compassion for him, 

                    and ran and embraced him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20) 

Let this case be like the son that is welcomed back home with open arms! Let our Heavenly Father run to Martine, protect her, and embrace her in His arms.

*Martine and Henri are pseudonyms, to protect their identities.

Here is the link to Amanda's blog. She is an attorney, a great writer and passionate about many things including God's heart for justice, adoption, and the poor.

Jamie has new legs!

Dear Friends, 

Remember back in September, we wrote about a girl named Jamie* who was abused and lost both legs below the knee after a fire? Click here to read that update. 

http://mearsfamilylife.blogspot.com/2013/09/hope-in-midst-of-loss.html

In the last few months, more has progressed in her story...  

- She has been very encouraged by being at the rehab clinic with other amputees and seeing that her life is not over, but there is HOPE. 

- Thanks to funds from donors, Jamie has new prosthetic legs!! 

Jamie* learning to walk again. 

- Her legal case went to the courts here in Rwanda and the two men who abused her were found guilty. 

- And she was also accepted into the boarding school at the rehab clinic. This is great news since she did not have a viable home to return to after her rehab was complete. Now, she has a place to go and not just anyplace, but a place to give her hope about how to live and walk with prosthetics. 

Her case has captured the hearts of others outside of Rwanda!

So, IJM is sending 3 people from the communications team at IJM's headquarters in Washington, DC to capture Jamie's* story.  This team arrives tonight and stays through Sunday. 

Can I ask for your prayers today?

- Pray for Jamie - for continued healing of her body, rehab therapy, and for her to feel the love of God each day of her life. 

- Pray for the communications team - that they will be able to document her story in a way that honors God and is respectful to her.

- Pray for the details of their trip - flights, photography & videography equipment, transport to the rehab center, translators, health. 

* Jamie is a pseudonym. 

Thanks, 

Anna & Lane

Hope in the Midst of Loss

JAMIE

Jamie's burned hands

The accommodations of the windowless house seemed to mock her: a bed, a nightstand and a single candle for light. She was not a guest in this house; she was a prisoner, locked inside by two men who had promised her a job but instead abducted and raped her the night before. As memories of the attack and the resulting despair overcame her, she fell asleep.

She awoke to smoke and heat. Disoriented, it took her a minute to realize that the house was on fire. Then, terror struck as she recalled that she was locked inside. She banged on the walls of the house and screamed for help. Meanwhile, the fire raged. Eventually, she heard voices outside the house calling her name, and she screamed all the louder. Yet, the flames found her before others could. When the neighbors finally broke down the door and pulled Jamie* to safety, they could see that her chest, arms and legs had been badly burned.

At the hospital, it was evident to the doctors that her legs were burned so badly that they were beyond their power to save. They amputated both legs below the knee. It seemed clear she would never walk again.

Lane and his Dad - Father's Day 2013

Thankfully, someone at the hospital knew of IJM, and referred the family to us for assistance. IJM immediately began to ensure that the abusers were arrested, and their files were sent to the prosecution so the men could be held accountable for their heinous crimes. IJM also worked to have Jamie transferred to a rehabilitation center, and arranged for prosthetic legs to be made for her. Upon her arrival at the rehab center, Jamie saw that she was not alone in her plight, and began to have hope that she might indeed walk again.

Today, Jamie is still at the rehab center and is taking part in IJM’s trauma counseling program. She seems to have hope, and is thankful that IJM staff and those praying for and supporting IJM are with her. Please pray for Jamie, as she is not out of the woods yet. When the doctors amputated her legs, they did not believe that she would be able to afford prosthetics. So, they amputated the legs in a way that was not compatible with prosthetics, and now Jamie may have to undergo a second surgery on her legs so that she can wear the prosthetics. Also pray that she would continue to recover emotionally and spiritually from the trauma, and that her abusers would be held accountable under the law.
(*Jamie is a pseudonym)

Caleb and his Great-Grandmother

*          *          *

Our Life in RWANDA
Greetings, friends and family. It’s been months since we posted an update of any real substance, and for that we apologize. The longer we live overseas, the more routine life here becomes and the less we are prompted to write. But, the truth is, I need to write. It’s cathartic, and I’ve sensed a growing need to do so.

It’s been a season of transition and loss over the last several months. Several families in our inner circle of community left Rwanda in May/June, generally for new opportunities in the US. Over a period of two weeks, it seemed we were at the airport seeing dear friends off three times a week. It caused us to reflect how blessed we have felt here to develop such solid friendships in a relatively short time. And it caused us to mourn the fact that we might never see some of these dear friends again, let alone have deep conversations, memorable times and sweet dance parties with them. Such is the life overseas: very transient. 

Family wedding

But, God has been very good to us. Not long after all these friends left, some old friends arrived. Our best friends when we lived in Nairobi were an American family with two boys Caleb and Abigail’s age. Just last week, this family arrived in Kigali for a 2-3 year Foreign Service assignment. We are very thankful and excited to have them here, as our families get along famously. And, we’re beginning to develop good friendships with other new families as well. We are seeing God’s provision for our emotional and spiritual needs in these new, and old, friends.

Catching up with long time friends

Trip to USA
This summer, we headed back to the US for our annual home leave. We are thankful that we got to spend some good time with our families and friends (Lane for a month and Anna and the kids for nearly 2 months). 

We were a part of Anna’s sister Kelley’s wedding in DC, spent lots of time with our parents in Dallas, had eight great days in Austin seeing friends, went to three baseball games, and I (Lane) got to visit my sister, Cara, in San Diego, along with my brother-in-law, niece, and four-day-old nephew, Cason. 

Kids seeing their Great-Grandfather 

The time went by so quickly! We are so thankful that IJM provides this great benefit, so that we can remain connected with those people and things we miss most. 

Praises:
- God answered so many prayers about our time in the states. From providing a car, to housing, to flights, and so much more. We give God the glory for walking ahead of us and providing in abundant ways!

Park and picnic with Nana

- Thank you for your prayers for Lane's knee. After seeing a specialist in Dallas, we found out Lane did not need surgery. yeah! Thank you Lord. However, the pain he feels now is due to arthritis, so pray for continued healing as Lane figures out ways deal with this new diagnosis.

- The kids are back to school and settled in quickly with their new classes. Luke started Kindergarten and is thrilled to be at the same school as his big brother and sister.

Prayer Requests:
- Please pray for our IJM office in Rwanda. We are going through the annual process of registration. Pray for favor and all of the details with this process. Many of the staff are setting aside a day of prayer and fasting during this next month. If you want to join with us, please email Anna for more details.

Playdates with friends from school in Austin

Thank you for your prayers. Any scriptures or prayers that you want to share with us, we would love that. Thanks again for walking with our family as we live overseas working for justice for the poor. We truly believe that each one of you are in this with us. WE are a body, we are the hands of Jesus ministering to the poor.


In Christ,
Lane & Anna Mears

Pruning

Here in Rwanda we have a guy that helps us with the yard and gardening at our house. It is a treat for me because I get to pick out the plants or vegetables and he does the work. Yesterday, I asked him to cut back the long row of geranium flowers on our fence line because they were getting too tall. When, I came home a few hours later, I almost cried. What I saw was not what I expected. He was halfway down the fence and my beautiful pink flowers were in piles on the yard. Now, they looked even worse in my mind but I didn't know what needed to happen in order to fix what I saw. I tried to cut some myself and see if I could fix it or what I would have done differently if I was the one with the cutting shears. But, that didn't do any good either.

Before...way overgrown!

My first thought was to put a row of small grassy looking border type flowers between the grass yard and the mess of cut flowers. I had wanted to do that for a while anyways. I thought it would create a nice border and so now may be the perfect time for that. So, I went down the street to the guy selling flowers and bought 20 of these small border plants. I brought them home and placed them where I wanted them planted. I was beginning to have hope, I liked these new little plants. Then I looked back at the stringy geranium mess and struggled with what to do with them and in a moment of defeat told the gardener to just cut them back all the way to about 10 inches from the ground, which would leave them totally bare, no flowers, no leaves, just stalks. Also, on the fence there is a white ledge on the bottom and so I asked him to sweep all of the old brown leaves and dirt off so we could see the nice white ledge.

After...pruned and new plants added

Now, I am looking outside after he has been working this morning and it hit me! I was afraid to prune these flowers. I loved them. I looked at them everyday. But they needed it. They will grow bigger and thicker after being pruned. I am such a novice at gardening that I couldn't see past the pain to know what it will look like some day after they regrow. Now, it looks clean, a bit bare, but clean and no longer an overgrown tangled mess. These little border plants are spaced enough so that they have room to grow, but they are pretty enough now, I think, just as they are. I have hope for the geraniums to grow back. Maybe someone with a little greener thumb, might read this and tell me I did it all wrong and cut them too much. But, today, I am hearing God speak to me and I will accept this message. It is a season right now for me, of feeling the pain of loosing the daily relationships that are now many miles away. This whisper from God to me today says, that those relationships do value but there is a season and a time for everything. New relationships will grow, new things are happening, new plants are being planted near me. I hated cutting those plants, but after wrestling with the decision, I finally did what needed to be done. Is OUR HEAVENLY FATHER the same way? Does he hesitate in pruning us? Does he shed tears when he sees the blossoms cut and laying on the grass no longer attached to the plant? But, unlike me, does he have the experience and all knowing and all loving power to see to the other side that ... THIS IS GOOD.

Surprise blessings

I couldn't stand to see handfuls of these pruned flowers on the grass just get tossed into the compost pile. So, like little children, I scooped them up and took them in the car with me on the way to pick up my kids from school. Maybe, just maybe, my 3 kids could give them to teachers to bless and encourage them. That is what we did and I found a joy in seeing each child hand their teacher a bundle of flowers from our own yard. They enjoyed doing it and you could see the delight in their teacher's eyes. A surprise blessing. Again, thank you Lord!

Thank you LORD for this lesson today. I write with tears to know that YOU DO CARE and I am thankful that you do speak in the everyday moments of my life. You do want to show me things and yes, I want to listen. If it takes the geraniums in my yard to reach me then go for it. It is a sweet reminder for me to keep my eyes open to other areas and ways that you show yourself to me.

Anna