The world is too broken for you to hide who you are.

You can express yourself in so many different ways…

When you were kid you could it all the time…get some fingerpaint and go! Paint unicorns or smiling families holding hands in front of a little house. 

As a grown up, it’s not so easy.

Saw this thing on Oprah’s network OWN…called Soul Pancake.  Encouraging adults to express who they are.  Had high expectations…thought it would be more spiritual.

They asked you to describe your soul…who you are by painting….it was like finger painting for adults.

The picked people off the street, put them in a white studio in front of a window and let them paint whatever they felt like…supposed to be what was in their soul.

Some people scribbled, others put dots, trees, one guy made a car.  Looked life fun, like being a kid again. Wonder how you would have expressed yourself…your soul. 

Wished it would have been deeper.  If all that’s on your soul is trees, scribbles, and a car…as an adult sounds like trouble.

If they would have picked me…I would have confidently walked up to that window, dipped my fingers in red paint, and make a giant cross. 

Without that big red cross...that Jesus died on….I am nothing.  My soul would be empty. 

But, with that cross, you are everything.  You are forgiven, you are new, you are restored.

It’s not what you don’t have that breaks you, it’s when you don’t think you matter, that you become broken.

Love the traditions this time of year.  Putting up the lights, decorating the tree.  Personal favorite:  The Great Pre-Christmas Toy Purge. 

Got motivated yesterday and went through the kids toy boxes and purged stuff that they don’t play with it…filled up 2 bags to donate… while the sunshines were turning a box into a boat with crayons…ironic.

Do this every year to make room for the influx of new toys.  It just feels so excessive sometimes.

Took the bags out to my car last night, than turned on 60 minutes while cleaning up the kitchen and tossing some leftover chicken nuggets in the trash.

I met Austin and Ariel.  Two kids that seemed about 12 and 15 that are homeless.  Their mom died recently, their Dad is out of work, their home was foreclosed, and now they are living in a truck, and they look at it as an adventure.  Ariel said, “It’s not really that much of an embarrassment, it’s only life.  You do what you need to do, right?” 

It’s life for a lot of kids.  1 out of every 4 kids in America lives in poverty, and here I am living in such excess where I have bags of things to give away. 

Austin and Ariel, don’t complain about what they don’t have.  They make the best out of it.  They go the library every day to study, use the computer, and stay warm.  In the interview, Ariel said, in her words she wants to be a “child defense attorney”.  I think that she just might grow up to be the best one ever.

It’s not what you don’t have that breaks you, it’s when you don’t think you matter.  Austin and Ariel matter.