healthcare and heartache.

I’ve been struggling so much lately with the reactions I hear to the new healthcare bill.

I do want to start by saying that I honestly do appreciate passion. I admire the passionate people in my life, and I do think that a strong passion for justice and a healthy government system was given to some people for an incredible purpose. I would never want to extinguish that in people in any way.

I realize that I have little life experience and even less knowledge about politics, but I do know God’s heart. I know His love and His grace, because He’s been more than forgiving and graceful to me. It really does break my heart to hear the words coming out of the mouths (and facebooks, and twitter pages) of people who openly claim to know this same grace. My political views are completely irrelevant to this post, and with that said, I can’t help but think about the way Jesus handled politics. He was so concerned about people and their hearts that there was no room for defaming the authorities of the time, as corrupt as they were.

It makes me so sick to hear exaggerated claims made by people that I genuinely respect and look up to. How could anyone say that food prices will definitely go up or the government will keep getting bigger, etc, when it hasn’t happened yet? I just don’t understand the need for all the hatred toward something that hasn’t even been proven successful or hurtful to our country yet. And I definitely think it’s pathetic for people who follow Christ to use Obama’s beliefs as an excuse to hate. Stop trying to bring the people around you to your level of anger, and pray for ones who you see as your persecutors.

Please, please remember –

“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Col. 3:14

Alive!

Just wanted to let everyone know that I am alive, though it doesn’t appear to be the case with my blogging record.

It’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks, starting with a VERY last-minute trip to San Diego over Valentine’s day weekend. I was absolutely crushed that my planned trip to see my family in Atlanta fell through due to snow on the east coast. (Really?? It NEVER snows it Georgia. Ughhh) My sweet husband felt so bad for me that he whisked me away to 70 degree weather for a wonderful 3 days.

The best part about going to San Diego was getting to see our friends from our Athens Church community group Cory and Ashley Thigpen, who recently got stationed there with Cory being in the Navy. It was so great to see a familiar face and share stories of living somewhere new and far away from everything familiar to us. It was such a blessing to have them be our tour guides for the day as well. They showed us around the GORGEOUS island of Coronado, which we would have never found without them. Here’s a couple pictures from our getaway 🙂

Come Fly With Me...

Cory and Ashley+One awesome view of the city!

Okay...so maybe the fact that there's a Chick-Fil-A there was the deciding factor on where to take a mini vacation to...It was worth it!

We also got to celebrate the birthday of one of Josh and my faaaavorite people this past weekend. Mister NOAH TAYLOR! He’s the one year old son of couple who are leading our house church and casting the vision for house church plants to happen all over Portland. We’re so thankful for the Taylors and have loved every minute with them and their little guy. Happy Birthday Noah! We love you!

That’s all I have for now. Keep us in your prayers if you don’t mind, as we try and figure out this journey God has us on.

Loving Portland because I’ve been shown INCREDIBLE love!

Caroline