You got me, Jordan Klepper

I'll be honest, my bed time routine has recently been extended.   And I blame you, Jordan Klepper.

It used to be that I'd crawl in my bed and I'd hear the du na na, du na na and with the launch of SportsCenter, I'd garner my sports trivia through a trans like state as I drifted off.

Then came along The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert gave my husband and I a way to wrap up the day together in a comedic spin on what often seems like political gridlock and childish games of keep away, but health care is at stake, compared to a nerf ball.

We made the transition and I appreciate Trevor Noah and his team now at the Daily Show, and as Jordan Klepper has spun off on his own show, I find myself looking forward to "The Opposition".

Last night was a pill to swallow.  It was a show about Christian fundamentalists and those participating in placing a binding spell on Trump that some might refer to as witch craft.

Today I'm still chewing on it.  Because its my faith.  And what's hard is having watched the piece they did, and in some ways I can look at it, and for the often touted views and displays of "Christianity"... I will not argue... they have a point.

For what so many hold as Christianity and these moral codes to live by (or hide behind)... for the bigotry that pervades... for what is shown through the media, the big "Christian" this or that with political motives, and even what we can witness weekly in our churches by people just wearing a title and not living a relationship... I hate to call anyone out, but what that is... its not what I experience.

My faith is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  I have a sense of a Spirit that leads and guides me.  There are times I sense Him moving strongly, suggesting peacefully, and times when it is quiet.  It has pushed me to love beyond whatever comes naturally, and seek justice... but not the "you're wrong, I'm right" kind... the kind I get to pursue everyday working at a Children's Home.  Pursuing hope for the vulnerable and downtrodden.

I don't write this to throw anyone else under a bus, but I did have to say something because to the one who may see "that christianity", I'm sorry... I'm sorry for the mockery it's made.  There is something so much more than that in truly knowing Christ.

To walk through the sickness of your own child, the troubles of life, and even the loss of those you love... there is something to going through that with "another"... the Greater Other.  The sense of when all you are is shattered that He is the superglue pervading every piece of you and somehow you even become grateful for troubles... for the encounter it provides.  The glimpses of what is truly holy.  The overflow of grace.  The multiplication of true joy, patience, kindness... it is beyond my humanness.  It is where I end and He begins.

So you got me, Jordan Klepper... You're writers are right, and I'm glad that its called out.  I hope the response isn't in angry written letters.  The response, I hope, is in hearts like mine.  Heart broken for the shattered and grossly disfigured image of Christ that we've allowed to prevail. It is to us that are challenged, to, with Christ, love greater and serve greater.

Bam!

Several years ago a friend gave me an awesome gift.  So awesome that it sat in a drawer, if we're being honest, a good solid two years.  Those are the best kind... You find it again and its like happy birthday to me all over again...

It was a great idea... one that if you used it you'd feel like one of those moms that are doing all the right things... 

Well getting down to it, it was a box with cards- each with creative letters of the alphabet and each letter starts a scripture.  Its been helpful really with little ones who are all about the alphabet, and in my awesome parenting, we'd all learn scriptures.  Except, lets just say half the time, I forget to change the letter.  We just got to Q, and I was curious as to what scripture starts with a Q (no spoiler alerts if you know X or Z... the anticipation is real and there are no peaksies).  Anywho, the scripture is truncated Isaiah 30:15 "quietness and trust is your strength".

I'm not going to lie... I read it and was like... wah wah.... what does that even mean? 

It actually was in my own reading a couple weeks later that I came back across it.... here's it a little more fully...

In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.

It caught my attention.

The following women's devotional added:

A woman's ego often pushes her into a whirlwind life of busyness, too.  If you are capable, and if the ladies adore you and heap compliments on your pretty head every time you teach the class or preside at the circle meeting, just be wary.  It is easy to mistake the voice of flattery for the voice of God.  Especially if you've been busy for so long, there hasn't been a really quiet time to hear God speak.

The voice of God is always speaking to us, and always trying to get our attention. But his voice is a "still, small voice," and we must at least slow down in order to listen.

Bam.  Like Emeril kinda BAM!

We're busy serving the poor...

BAM!

We're finding ways to build our community...

BAM!

We're keeping up with the latest trends in being women, moms, in business, etc....

BAM, BAM, BAM!

That Emeril.... he's kinda noisy!

We have great intentions, but how many of us have succumbed to approval, applause, and the voices that aren't so still or small.

And before we know it... or maybe we don't because its so busy, loud and noisy, we have none of it, like the scripture reads.

They may be great things we are doing, but as we're reminded...

In repentance and rest is our salvation, in quietness and trust is our strength...

Be still my soul!

It may be my attention to abiding that draws my eyes to the nature of active waiting these scriptures paint.

Repentance... an about face... 

Rest..."freedom from activity or labor"...

Quietness.... the absence of noise... the stillness that heightens the senses...

Trust...assured reliance on the character, ability, strength, or truth of someone... namely God.

So why doesn't this match most of our lives?  Is it realistic to even think in today's society and culture that we have a fighting chance?  Is this just abandoning life?

Maybe.

I also think this is the stillness that exists inside... no matter how busy my job or motherhood requires me to be, am I active to repent?  Am I finding my soul's rest in the quietness I create so that the still small voice of the One I trust is able to come or even carry me through?

Even in it all, we are commissioned to repent and rest in him... it is our own salvation.  We have the strength, because we trust in the quietness its His voice that guides us through.

And in true Sesame Street fashion, because well, little bit loves Elmo...

Today's blog brought to you by.... The letter Q!

My Story

I shared my story as the guest speaker today for the Professional Women of Williamson County...

Photo taken by: Jen Henderson

It was about a little over a decade ago that I found myself sitting outside the US Embassy in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.  The Minister of Health and Deputy Chief of Health were playing tug of war in some kind of a power struggle and the lifeline of the project I was charged to lead along with the US State Department was on the line. In just a few short days my team of 35 doctors and volunteers would be arriving.  We were there to bring in a multi million dollar shipment of donated pharmaceuticals, building projects in orphanages and provide medical education in this former republic of the USSR.  I was 23, had been married for just over a year and my furthest travels had included Colorado and Pennsylvania.  

You know… sometimes life surprises you.

Its like a book, but its the story of us.

Each of us is dropped into a unique history, mid story, given our chance to add to it.  Sometimes you can sense the twists and turns of the plot, but as I found out early on, life is not something that always follows to a plan, Its a journey and an adventure if you let it.

It was hard to see at 23 as I sat in the US Embassy…

Stopped in my tracks, my mind was questioning my preparation or even why in the world I was the one currently sitting in this seat.  And it wasn’t just that the Tajik Ministry of Health was trying to unravel the project… this was only one more thing added to having almost missed my flight in Oklahoma City, getting sick in between flights at Washington Dulles, landing in Munich with a fog so dense that our flight to Istanbul was delayed every hour on the hour until after 6 hours, they brought in the police to protect the airlines staff from what was developing into an angry mob.  They then took us out onto the tarmac only to determine something was wrong with the plane and brought said angry non English speaking mob back to the airport.  They finally got a working plane, I loaded up, and fell asleep.  I was awoken, thinking we had landed only to realize we never had left.  There was a terrorist threat on the plane a nice semi English speaking German girl shared.  We all unloaded, grabbed our non bomb toting luggage and loaded the cleared bags back onto the plane.  At this point, I was aware that the twice a week flight out of Istanbul to Dushanbe would be missed, and I am now 5 days stranded in Istanbul and 5 days delayed on getting in country and ready for the State Department and my team.  You can understand my confusion when my luggage was apparently lost, a I myself put it on the plane to prove it was not a threat in the earlier described terrorist threat.  To kill some time, I was given a personal tour of the city which became a little too personal. As we ducked into the underground cistern, he asked me to close my eyes. The big reveal I expected wasn't a view I expected, it was his kisses down my neck. After receiving a marriage proposal in the underground cistern, I was just pleased to make it back to my hotel room unharmed.  Upon finally making it to Dushanbe, the hotel I had worked with over emails and calls had failed to mention they had taken on renovations, and had ceased the use of their elevators, but the “good news” was the 8th floor had been remodeled for my team of mostly retired physicians.  So with less than a week, I was forced to relocate the team, and its not like in Dushanbe there’s just another Hilton down the corner with capacity for 35, but God was gracious and Shamsi, my interpreter, was tenacious and we secured the location with only a few days to spare.  It was fast and furious working from 6am or so to midnight each day.  I had been in country a week or so when The team arrived and the project lasted a couple weeks.  Even on the trip home, I was stopped and asked to step off a plane in Copenhagen… with some confusion about where was my boarding pass, or perhaps it was the money belt I was wearing with $9,999 that had drawn the attention of the flight crew.  

What was a neat and tidy project on paper was quickly re framed to become a journey turned to a pretty extraordinary adventure, to say the least of it.  It is the twists and turns of the adventurous journey  that give the opportunity of great discovery… of ourselves, our passions, and our calling.

Today is a great day to celebrate that.

With the support of your community in this room, we celebrate the opportunity of unlocked potential, not only in your future endeavors, but in who you continue to discover yourselves to be.  

We celebrate the stories of the women here, their successes, and their investment in the future of our community through their daily endeavors and the mantle of encouragement, empowerment and education they carry to create the opportunities for you, me and others.

It was seven years ago that I sat in these chairs as a scholarship recipient.  

At the time, It was just my husband and I and we were putting him through grad school full time and on a single nonprofit income.  But I felt a calling of preparation to get my MBA.  So you can see, it was a step of faith to pursue furthering my education.

Because of my scholarship with the Professional Women of Williamson County, I took that first step, not knowing how it would all happen, and was enrolled in the inaugural class for the Concordia University MBA. It was a rigorous two years, and step by step I was faithfully led with provision, and in 2012 I graduated with a 4.0 GPA earning my MBA with an emphasis in Organizational Leadership and Management, with over half of my education provided for through various scholarships.

I want to pause and give thanks.  To the women in this room who made my first scholarship possible and to those who gave today.  I thank you for your investment.

The grand adventure continues today.  It was actually 8 years ago that I sat in a room much like this at a women’s luncheon in Round Rock.  The guest speaker was the City Manager at the time, and she was sharing about Round Rock and it seems a focus of her presentation landed us on the heavy reliance at the time on the Dell sales tax, which made up something like 40% of the city’s income.  It seemed a little odd at the time when it almost became open mic asking the crowd if there were any questions or suggestions on a solution to decrease the dependence.  It was unconventional, it sounded like crickets chirping, but I’m glad she asked, because you never know what you can put together unless you ask.  

It was right around then that I had read an article from the ABJ about how cities with a thriving young professional community had all of these positive key metrics for the whole community… I also recognized at that time, I was the only person showing up at Chamber functions who happened to be in their twenties.  We had consistent and solid leadership for decades, and with a population boom in the works, I questioned how do we continue a sense of community?  There was so much historical knowledge and an apparent gap in future leadership.  

My brain is one that likes to make connections and it wasn’t a couple of weeks before I met with the president of the chamber with my written proposal of a new program.  I desired to create a program where young professionals would have opportunities to build an annual program around the issues they are concerned about in the community, bringing in the leaders in education, infrastructure, entrepreneurship and other areas and learn from their experience. To learn from each others journeys and together meld a future generation of leadership for our community.  Our graduates and current class are spectacular people, making some of the best of our community, and so it doesn’t surprise me that some are in this group and room today as part of this wonderful cause.  

I’m so proud that they are taking what they experience, the relationships they develop and are giving back to their community,  whether that's active in the School PTA or serving on the School Board in Round Rock and one here in Georgetown.  We have others who invest their talents in leading great community efforts like the Community Foundation and others serving on City Council.  I think my dream someday would see this program expand so that we can offer similar opportunities to young professionals from all backgrounds across all of Williamson County.  

This was and continues to be such a big part of my adventure, and I’ll tell you what you already know.  Its why you’re here.  Because we recognize that life is so much bigger than ourselves.  The investment in others is a greater calling and an investment in our community.  You have invested in me and the young ladies here today, and in some part we’re all part of the grand adventure now.

Today my education and the experiences it has afforded continue to play a vital role not only in my community work, but also professionally and personally.

In May it will be my honor to have served on staff at Texas Baptist Children’s Home and for Children At Heart Ministries for 9 years.  As part of the twists and turns of any grand adventure, I find myself serving at the very children’s home I lived at when I was 5 years old when my family served as staff.  I have the unique perspective of memories as a child in cottage 5.  It was on the playground, around the dining room table and in the playroom that many of the virtues and values I hold today were formed.  It is where I realized that the children in my cottage were no different than me, other than my family was intact and theirs was not.  It also gives me the incredible perspective when talking with volunteers and donors that I can say specifically that I know in 25 years your gift will still be giving. So today, my MBA is helping over 145 children and single mothers find they are embraced, empowered and equipped to thrive for a promising future.  We were able to launch a brand new tour in January unlike anything we’ve done before, setting a goal of 2 per month and 230 guests for the year.  We have just had our 19th tour, hosted 229 guests, and 26 groups lined up through dates into September to come and be part of The Heart of The Home Experience.

Personally, education has afforded me the perspective shift of how I define myself to move from what I do, to who I am and what I am to be.  I pray that for each of us as we recognize to greater and greater extents of who we are called to be.  

You know how Oprah used to have those “Life Classes”? I feel in some sense my life has been an intensive lately.  18 months ago my  second son was born.  Infertility was the first battle overcome.  He was born with two ear deformities that required correction.  He also seemed to have a bit of reflux, and that's putting it lightly as if he wasn’t eating or sleeping, he was all out screaming...for months and months.  After a double ear infection, he was treated with antibiotics and gave opportunity to contract C-diff. A bacteria that colonizes and eats away at the lining of the intestines.  It is hard to battle, and there were times in the last year that I thought I was going to lose my son as his growth stalled and he slipped off the growth charts.  It was months of treatment, compounded with a case of salmonella to boot.  With the delay in his growth came delays in his development, and we sought the help of professionals in occupational, physical and speech therapies.  The turnaround was slow, and we began to pick up steam only for a freak accident at home when his feet got tangled in a lamp cord, pulling the lamp down and breaking his finger and getting 7 stitches.  As he has been healing, another freak accident happened and my husband fractured his fibula and has required surgery.

I share from my personal experience only to say… I find it's also part of the grand adventure.  For each of our stories, there will be hardships, failures and trials.  They too are part of the education of life.  The experience has the opportunity to create feelings of isolation.  As much as it may seem contrary, we can embrace these times.  It is a time of self discovery and reflection… The opportunity to explore virtue, patience, kindness, love, self control, discernment and enduring peace and joy.  It's where we learn a deeper ability to relate and the strength and power of our story can be built as an encouragement to others.  It is where our own calling can be rooted, established and more deeply founded. And to be fully honest, if you’re like me you can harness your natural frustration with it all into some very productive cleaning…

But these are the  experiences that build the stories of our lives.  We celebrate the victories. We embrace the losses. It does not happen in a bubble or isolation.  We realize that with each day, each breath breathed, every word spoken, every action taken, we are adding to that history we were placed into.  These not only further our own chapters, but intentionally or inadvertently we are writing onto the pages of our families, our neighbors, our coworkers, and our community’s story.   

So own your adventurous journey. Live today like the moment you’ve been preparing for. Invest in today's opportunities and its people… Discover your calling. And over our lives, these journeys we take and the adventures we share will be the heritage of our families and the fabric of our communities.

Thank you.

Ode to Joy

It was about this time last year that I felt I had been given a word for the year, and that word was joy.  For those of you who are personal friends, I think you can see the irony as honestly last year was the hardest of my life.  My son's long-standing illness was the theme for much of the year, leaving me sleep deprived and highly suspicious of said "joy".

Its like for you people who have ever prayed for patience.  Those of us who have know.  That thing should come with a warning.  Should joy be approach with the same regard?

But this.. a year of joy?  It felt like a flat out lie. 2016 was a game changer.

Even the holidays seemed to pay tribute as both of my kids ran fevers, I had the longest headache ever of my life, and two migraines, one that sent me to urgent care, and head aches aren't really normal for me... well, but nothing is normal about 2016.

The holidays are still spinning in my head and it seems like after dinner when I have the kitchen to myself and the mindlessness of cleaning up (which I find to enjoy, but don't tell my husband) that God seems to be speaking pretty loudly.

Last night I broached the subject again...

"Hey God.  remember last year.... yeah, remember? (Of course he does, He's God).  Well, you told me joy... and well, last year I didn't feel very joyful."

"Hey, Mandy..."

"Yea, God?"

"Remember several years ago while you were working on your MBA?"

"Sure"

"Well, do you remember what you learned then?"

"Yea... I was really challenged to think about my self in the term of "being" rather than "doing""...

(Light bulb comes on)

"Ohhhhhh...

I missed the boat on that one... you're calling me  to instead of look for joy or experience joy.... you want me to BE joy".

"Bingo"

I recall in going through my hard time that it could be ... any number of words to try to describe it... a time of long-suffering...isolating... challenging to the knowledge of who one is in the scope of God's bigger plan...

Jeremiah 29:11 has been my verse since I was a child.

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you.  Plans to give you a hope and a future.

I told God that I was going to claim it, and be audacious enough to see where my life would land if I truly believed it.

If you would have told me I'd be a wife, mother, and have job, I might have felt a bit underwhelmed.  I planned for something BIG.... I was ready for BIG, and to be honest, its left me in a place at times where I keep looking for big, and feel like maybe I misread or misinterpreted what God was calling...

Well, yes and no.

I missed the boat in that I was always looking for it, not because I believed it.

What I missed is... BIG is here.  It is in the now.  It is people.  It is love.

So, here's to 2017... a chance to get it right... a chance to claim it.

I am not some world renown preacher.  I am (so far) not on a trajectory of a life story or impact of the likes of Mother Theresa.

I have been called... but I have been called to BE Amanda Keeter, and the when is now.

There is solace to the madness of 2016, and other times when life is maddening... it deepens our reservoirs for compassion, empathy and love.

So 2017, there is no end game... not one great to do accomplishment.  There is the challenge to BE JOY.  To be in the days, and love those we come into contact with, even if its over a conference call to a new friend who shares a hard day.

This is my new years resolution to be joy.

Trust me, I'm being gracious...

Its been a while since I last wrote.  Alot has happened, and yet at the same time, it appears that the circumstances have not really shifted all that much.  In cases like that I prefer not to write, because it can be born of a sense of frustration or perhaps wanting to send a subliminal message, which isn't for me.

But today I write with the full intention of sending a message.

So lets just have at it...

IT IS SOOOOOO EASY TO BE THE CRITIC!

More than that it is down right cowardly.

You couch it as the victim, you couch it as sharing an unthought of perspective.

You let your friends and family down with your easily spoken, not so easily retracted sentiments that lack an ounce of grace.

You need a swift kick in the pants!

You are so caught up in your own story line that you've become self absorbed.

WOE. IS. ME.

Someone has needed to say this, and I am so surprised they haven't... but I'm starting to feel better for it.

Have you considered for one minute the demons others are fighting?  You and your sheltered existence need to remember the hurts that daily are carried by others.

Well the reality is, I could go on and on.  But I have to stop myself.  What I wrote needed to be said, but it also needs to be followed by this.

Please, remember grace.  Please remember to act out of love, and not love for self.
I know you're tired.  The circumstances are extenuating, but it's time to stop using them as an excuse.
Get back to what you love and who you love.  And then, dang it, get after the potential you are meant to live for!
Again... live and give grace.  Remember your best, but when you don't succeed, or when people let you down... please go to grace.  Be inspired by the best in life, but don't fall into perfectionism from yourself or others.  Perfectionism is a form of legalism and it's not life giving.

Now some may be wondering... man, what set her off?  Who is she talking about?  And a few of you may just be thinking you know who I'm talking about.

That's right, if you said her name is Amanda Keeter.

Sometime grace comes in the form of a swift kick in the pants.  For me, I've been challenged, but have let those challenges take the reins on my outlook.  I'm so thankful that God isn't done shaping me. (You have to watch this video for more on that).  Its been painful this year to understand the need for grace, often out of my own shortcomings.  To learn self-discipline, but often kicking and scraping my nails as I'm dragged into new habits that actually shape me into a better person.  Grace means giving up control.  Grace means giving up perfection.  Grace isn't just something I must extend to others, sometimes its hardest to extend it to yourself... myself.

I write this and share it openly only to encourage... I needed to call myself out.  Its time to be the better me, and accept my challenges, own them, and then just give it my best and find contentment in that.  Not to be afraid of the outcome, and then not trying so there's an excuse of why I didn't live up to my expectations.  My potential will be what I make of it, and not something I could have done.  Most of all, I have to give it all to the Lord.  To see with His eyes.  To trust His outcome.  Seek His greatness in others, in what I do, in who I am.

It's time to stop the insanity.  Its time to stop doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.  Stop buying into the lies.  God doesn't make junk. Its time to accept His image of others and His image of me.  Now that's grace.

Fiasco a Picasso?

Sometimes you just have those days... if its not one thing its another.  You know you have had enough of those days if measuring time moves away from dates to its relativity to one life event or another.  It can make you develop callouses or a sense of humor.  Sometimes a little of both for good measure.

There are times when you feel like you're waking up and you've found yourself within the plotline of an old Bill Murray movie, Groundhogs Day.  Maybe today you wake up and find yourself again in Punxsutawney questioning..."this again?"  I thought we've been here, done that, got the t-shirt, milked it for all its worth and yet... here we are again.  You question if God has a certain pleasure for the ironic or if you are just stupid enough to have somehow gotten back on this merry-go-round or if there is some stone unturned in the spiritual journey that He REALLY wants you to learn and somehow you've missed it.

Somehow I know I'm not the only one who can be experiencing these things, but they have a relative way of creating isolation, anger, frustration, stupidity or even an embrace of abiding in a sense of long-suffering.

Out of my own carnival of sorts, I have come to a greater perception of the power of grace.  In many cases it is when I feel hurt that grace kicks in as a tool I didn't know I had.  One that not only demands it for my own life, but a calling to extend it.  When we rightfully feel a call for vindication, we are given the accompanying power to utilize grace.

Sometimes, I'll be honest, I'm looking at what appears to be a total fiasco.  I know grace should abound here, but I can't see where it can grow, where it will come from, or even the right words to give it.  Its there where I start to see the fruits of the spirit emerge from depths I cannot contain nor previously owned.  The lens of kindness helps me to see, the spirit of patience stills the waters of my soul.  Gentleness guides my words.  Do they come out perfect?  I gave up on perfection in the effort just to try.  Hopefully grace abounds and my efforts that could always use more polishing will come across palatable and sculpt the messiness of who I am into the art of reflecting Him.  It may not be a point for point rendering, but if it resembles Picasso, I'll take it.

The Faces of Hope- Power and Surrender

Earned lesson number one, as covered in my previous posting, was that abiding hope is long suffering.  As discussed, abiding for any period of time requires one to discover the active nature of the term, beyond its passive exterior.  Earned lesson number two has more to do with results and actions related to abiding hope.  Lesson number two is that hope has a face of both power and surrender.

Power.  What a word, right?  One glance at the news, ourselves or an experience driving on a highway displays the different facets of power.  Power evokes.  We see so many striving for it.  And sometimes, combined with hope, it is survival at its core.

Last night Robin Roberts was doing a special for 20/20.  The show detailed the lives of two of the three girls who were abducted and lived chained in a house for 10 years or so.  One of the girls shared about their only connection to the outside world being a little black and white TV that was kept in the basement.  As life seemed to pass them by, they would catch glimmers of hope, one that seemed to catch Robin off guard.  One of the girls shared that one of the most encouraging things she saw was just after Hurricane Katrina.  Robin's family had been in the wake of the storm, and Robin was visibly upset while reporting on the devastation and that her family were all okay.  Amanda Berry, shared that she saw Robin's resiliency and was encouraged that one day she too would be free.  Today she is.

At one point in the program they showed the girls tracing the outline of a small metal home decor item that their perpetraitor brought home from a craft fair.  They would trace it over and over.  It was the word HOPE.  This also inspired the title for the upcoming book, Hope, A Memoir of Survival in Cleveland.

Hope paired with power can persevere under extraordinary circumstances.  

However, power, unharnessed under hope can become corrosive to one's self and those that surround them.  It appears that the power of hope must also be bridled by surrender.  Surrender itself can be taken in so many ways.  It, like abiding, can appear weak, passive or lacking of soul.  However, coming to the point of surrender requires the giving up of self, and that in itself is no easy feat.  

For me, this is the new angel I wrestle.  Surrendering in hope has brought me to see the ugliness in pride.  As pride is revealed to me I begin to wonder- how much pride can one person contain?  And then another instance occurs where I bear offense, I  become self preserving, and begin to swallow my self in self.  Thankfully the action and result of abiding hope seems to be a status of surrender.  God is able to get my eyes off myself and look to Him for defining, for Calling, and for extending grace.  Power and pride are cancerous and slowly choke out the life of grace. Hope balanced in power and surrender draws me to say.... I leave my pride at the door, and choose to walk out in dignity.