My firstborn graduates from high school tonight.

Such a momentous occasion.

I remember that night of my high school graduation. Getting ready....hoping my hair looked all right. Hoping I looked all right. I would be sitting on the front row, since I was in the top 10 of my class, so I wanted to look good. Dashing out the door, asking my older (and much more beauty-savvy sister), "How do I look?" She had no idea how I idolized her. Her reply I will never forget: "Beautiful." I smiled the rest of the night.

I don't physically remember walking across the stage and getting my diploma--I have a picture of me shaking our vice principal's hand and receiving the diploma, but it was a blur in my mind. I do remember the family party afterwards. My sister-in-law made a cake and I remember a note from my oldest brother. He talked of silver being formed in the crucible and how that brings forth its best potential. It was prophetic of his life at the time....and mine years later.

I remember that last summer before college....having a serious crush for the first time, on a guy who was interning with our youth group at church. I enjoyed his flirting with me and had my first kiss that summer. I fell hard for him and entered college that fall wondering what would become of us. He gave me a New Testament with a note in the front. I kept it for a very long time. We eventually went our separate ways, after I met someone those first few weeks of college. But I will never forget him and the way he introduced me to the feeling of butterflies in your tummy and spending hours dreaming.....

Yes, high school graduation is a turning point...a celebration of achieving a goal, a looking forward to the next adventure.

I can't believe my CHILD is there. He is a young man....happened so very fast.

I like who he is; I like who he is becoming. I look forward to celebrating him tonight.

Congratulations, Levi Thomas Hinson.

You have made me a very proud mother today.

I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. John 12:24 NIV

In order for the seed to produce, it must be put into the ground...actually it must fall to the ground. It must give up supporting itself, carrying its own weight, and fall down. It must die in the ground.

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over." John 12:24 The Message

I love how the Message says the grain must be buried in the ground. When something is buried, it is covered up....no one can see what's happening....and that's where something happens....if it stays buried. When it stays buried...covered up....unnoticed....that's when it begins to do what it was made to do: sprout! Reproduce! Over and over and over again!! When that grain is connected with the dirty, smothering, heavy, opaquing soil, it is changed into a life-giving plant instead of a hard, dry seed.

Which do I want to be? Where am I choosing to be? Out in the open....to be noticed? Or, buried....to be transformed?

After reading a blog post tonight, I am finally compelled to write again.

The post told of the author reading the following quote in an airplane magazine:

“How many things have you done in your life that you know, with absolute certainty, you will remember for the rest of your life?”

I can honestly say that my trip to Mexico qualifies.

I just returned from Mexico yesterday. I spent 12 days at an orphanage, living with children who have been rescued from desperate situations: parents in prison, parents living on the streets, parents who abused or neglected them or passed them from one relative to another, no parents at all.... I heard testimony after testimony of children whose lives had been radically different from what they are now. Before, they had been sexually abused, physically abused, abandoned, forced to take drugs, you name it, it had happened in one form or another.

But now....now, they have a home...safety....shelter....food and clothing...love and nurturing...and they have parents who teach them about a Savior who came for them....for THEM....who rescued them from their danger...giving them new life...new purpose.....joy....life. These parents model for them what it means to be a Jesus-follower, a Jesus-lover, a Jesus-worshiper. These parents are real....their word is for real....their love is for real.

I marveled as these children, who work more hours than they play, cleaning and maintaining their living complex, taught me about contentment, acceptance, joy that goes beyond circumstances, and genuine love. Their gratitude abounds. Their friendship is authentic.

I went, hoping to give.... and ended up being the recipient.

I went, wanting to serve....and ended up being served over and over.

I went, hoping to teach them of God... and returned, having been the student, day after day, in my own little private school. I didn't realize I had even enrolled....

I am humbled by faith that simply trusts...because You ask them to.

I am humbled by love that gives so freely...over and over and over.

I am humbled by precious souls who have known such hurt in their lives....telling me that my prayers with them are helping them to walk in forgiveness instead of bitterness...because they are trusting that God is changing their hearts.

Lord, You are amazing. Your work continues in your children.

Keep teaching me, Lord.

I have so much still to learn.

Thank you for Mexico, 2009. I pray this is only the beginning of our relationship with these little ones--that we will see many turning to You in the prisons...on the streets....in the community of El Salto.

I come to the table,
I come with my sin.
I come so unworthy,
Yet You welcome me in.
I come bearing shame and guilt,
And the ravages of my sin.....

But You say,
Don't you see the blood
Of my Son?
Don't you see the blood
Of my Son?
Lift up your head and see
the blood of my Son,

You're free!
You're free!
Free to be all I made you to be!
You're free!
You're free!
Free to be all I made you to be!

But then Satan's right there to taunt me,
And he accuses me and says,
Don't you remember the time you cursed him?
And I hang my head in shame.....

But You say,
Don't you see the blood
Of my Son?
Lift up your head and see
the blood of my Son--
It covers all that you have ever done!
The blood of my Son!
And the blood is there for everyone!
The blood of my Son!

You're free!
You're free!


As I reflected upon a friend whose marriage is being viciously attacked by our enemy, Satan, I was praying.....and the Lord reminded me that it is so easy to focus on my failures and mistakes in this life.....to feel that it's all up to me....and when I don't measure up,...well....

But He whispered to me, "Jina, don't you see the blood of My Son? Take your eyes off yourself and look at the blood of my Son. It completely covers all of your transgression--all the transgression of the entire world. Look to me--you are free! When I see you, I see the perfect blood of my Son."

Hallelujah!

"As a priest, Christ made a single sacrifice for sins, and that was it! Then he sat down right beside God and waited for his enemies to cave in. It was a perfect sacrifice by a perfect person to perfect some very imperfect peoople. By that single offering, he did everything that needed to be done for everyone who takes part in the purifying process." Hebrews 10 The Message

"But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God's Son, purges all our sin.....I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When he served as a sacrifice for our sins, he solved the sin problem for good--not only ours, but the whole world's." IJohn 1 The Message

MIdnight ruminations

It is late. My oldest son is running around downtown Snohomish in the dark as part of a "welcome-back-to-cross-country-workouts" at midnight. At 1:08am I am still awaiting his return home.

My husband is "noodling" on his guitar. Always adjusting sounds, timbre, effects, volume.... Ever the insatiable learner, ever the inventive musician, EVER the night owl....

My second oldest son is probably dreaming of new and clever ways of establishing his reign as Xbox supreme-extraordinaire of our family. Well, yes, that, coupled with how best he can push Micah's buttons tomorrow. That stinker.....

Micah, always the builder, always the yeller, always checking the calendar for how many days hours until his birthday. Micah is probably dreaming of a day in which everything he does IS actually funny, instead of being told, again, "that wasn't funny, Micah.... I know YOU thought it was funny, but it really wasn't funny...." What more does a boy( who LOVES to laugh) want, except to be told that he is really funny?

My daughter has wandered about the house the last two days with the "I feel miserable" feverish glaze in her eyes. I hate that so much. I miss the sparkle in her eyes when she is her healthy self.

God, please help me. All these precious people you have brought into my life. Help me to love them, listen to them, honor them, and help them soar into the lives of purpose and power that you have planned for them. Help me, God.

Isn't He beautiful

I think I'm beginning to glimpse His beauty....to begin to be lost in it....and wonder why I never saw it before......

It's as if I never saw HIM before.....

And to begin to glimpse His beauty is to begin to comprehend what an awesome thing it truly is that He loves me....unconditionally... for that blows my mind.

Turn my eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face,
Oh awesome Lord, continue to show me this incredible Savior that pursues me relentlessly.....
May this world continue to grow strangely dim, in the light of His glorious grace. Grace that has glory written all over it. For it could not be grace without His signature glory attached.

Jesus, thank you.... Please use me to bring you more glory.

I love you, Jesus.

Time

Blogging is a curious thing. I am allowed inside a person's mind, inside their brain musings, inside their hurts, inside their hearts. Many of these people I don't know at all. I have only followed a link from a website of someone I do know. Perhaps it is the need in all of us to connect, to wish to deeply know another person, and for the "blogger"--to be known and listened to, that drives this phenomenon. In a sense , it is like reading an autobiography in real time.....

My own heart is filled with the wish of wanting more time in my life. More time to just think, muse, be. I stay up late and get up early, in the hope of having more time, while during the day I feel like too many possums I see on the road: flatliners on the energy-meter.

And yet, I need that time.

That time fuels me for time with my family, with the demands of the day, with the unexpected emergencies that always find their way into our daily lives.

That time focusses me, if I will allow it. Too often it is spent wanting to veg. I think I need to escape when all I really need is to tune in. To the real source.

Thank you, God, for time. Perhaps small increments of time give me hope for what you've really planted within my heart--what I'm really yearning for.

And what you've made me for.

Ecclesiastes 3:11He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end.