Guest Post: The Tiny Twig on Inspiration

Inspire: to heighten or intensify, to prompt, to cheer, to revolutionize, to stimulate the spirit.

Those are big words.  Inspiration.  It's something we all need to live a life of adventure.  It is something that breathes wind into our sails.  It prods us on.  We can't go far without it.

Below, are just a few things that inspire me, The Tiny Twig, into a life of adventure...and after all, a life without adventure isn't a life much worth living.  A lack of adventure is akin to poverty of spirit.  You can have adventure in your mind if you're bedridden, adventure of the body if you weren't gifted with intellect, adventures in creating if God blessed you that way.  Adventure can be found in the most peculiar places...not just hiking, woods, and camping.  Blech.  I don't like any of those things.  Although, I do want to go to Banff.

Seriously, growing a family is the most amazing thing I have ever done.  Choosing the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with and convincing him of the same thing was an amazing adventure.  And then have part in creating miniatures of him seems like just too much to ask for.  Seriously though, shaping the bodies, minds, and spirits of little people is the highest honor and privilege.  It is also a weighty responsibility.  One that inspires me to be more than I thought I was.

This is our church.  It is a great church filled with really genuine people.  It is within these walls that I corporately worship Jesus Christ with my friends and fellow believers.  But, a church is just a building.  The rest of the world is where we live out that faith.  Where we love others as Christ first loved us, where we serve the impoverished and oppressed, where we are joyful because we have hope.  The bedrock of my life, the unshakable ground upon which the rest of my life is built, is Jesus Christ.  God is, was, and forever will be...and to me, that is the comfort I need to go out on a limb in life.

My friend Jace does incredible work as a photographer and filmmaker.  His heart lies with those who can't tell their own stories, and through him I've experienced a different world.  I will do everything I can to help him, because he has opened my eyes to truth that is going on in faraway places.  That, to me, is inspiring.  He lives with little so that others aren't silent, alone, and without.  He recently completed a documentary about post-earthquake Haiti called, "When the Ground Stopped Shaking".  It is such an incredibly moving account, and really if you have 40 minutes you should watch it.  He is currently trying to fund his next project called, "When the Rain Starts Falling".  This film will illustrate the plight of the homeless when rainy season comes.  Did you know there are currently 300,000 child slaves in Haiti being held legally by their owners?  1,000,000 people are still homeless from the Earthquake, and rainy season will bring disease and more infrastructure problems.  He lives a life I cannot live, because of my life as a mother.  But, he inspires me to be an active participant in his adventure and his passion of telling stories of those less fortunate. 

I am inspired because of my desire to chase down that magic spark in life.  The one that makes love stories amazing.  The same one that grows boy into men of integrity and honor.  The thing that makes you gasp, stop the car, and take a picture (which is what happened in the photo above).  That magic spark that colors life with beauty and wonder.  I want to experience that, and I want to know how others chase down that same magic spark.  It is our humanity that is magic, I believe.  It is the gift that God gives His creation, and we just get to seek it out and enjoy it.