What moves you to get off your butt

& do something?

For some disciplined people little things move them to change.

Can you feel my jealous sarcasm already oozing from the screen? Yeah, you know the ones that get on the scale, have gained  1.43 pounds, who suddenly realize they better make a change before it gets any worse!? and then DO IT!!!! This might even be you! I congratulate you  in a confused, envious, what planet were you birthed on, sort of way.

That’s not me, in case you didn’t guess. And anyone who knows me would tell you the same (if they had the guts!).

I’m the one that steps on the scale & questions the integrity of the machine. If it says I gained a pound… even 20 pounds, I try to reason it away, “That stupid scale! I knew I should’ve bought a digital one, ‘cuz this one has a mind of its own!” I’m the delusional one that tries on jeans and thinks, “I just know they are making clothes sizes smaller to fit skinny girls with no hips. The cut of the jeans is made for a 12 year old’s body! Darn America’s obsession with a size 2!!!!”  Okay, you get my point. Enough about my self-induced delusions!

What moves YOU to change? Catastrophes? Like Hurricane Katrina or more recently the earthquake in Haiti? To be honest I’m ashamed to admit I didn’t do much to help in these tragedies. I prayed for the people & the volunteers, but it didn’t cause me to make a change or to give in the way that it did many others who sacrificed their time & resources to help.

A few weeks ago, though, something clicked for me, and it wasn’t my mouse. I started researching (keyword: started) topics I’m interested in. I’m interested in all sorts of things like scrapbooking, making money, coming up with lame jokes, cooking, music, movies, planning events, and books. At the moment my favorite fiction books are The Twilight Saga. I know, I know I hear the groans! Can’t help it, it’s an addiction really…

Okay, back to my point. My answer to what moves me is this: Passion. Passion Moves Me. In any form, it stirs my soul when passion is involved, (which actually would explain my Twilight obsession). So, I started researching topics I’m passionate about, not just interested in. That research led me to articles, books, websites, videos of injustice that, in my head I knew was happening, but my heart hadn’t connected. Yet.  I got to a point where my stomach felt sickened and quite frankly I was pissed (yeah, i said it) that I’ve cornered myself into this little bubble of my comfortable life.

Let me stop here & say I really do love my stay-at-home mom life, my family, and I do my best not to take anything for granted. But educating myself on what’s happening in my both my town & across the world brought my life into perspective. I needed to change!!! Not wanted to. I needed to be moved out of my complacency. My heart began to soften & look outward. I need to challenge this Comfortable American Mom {CAM} to do more. I challenge you as well. Here’s the knowledge you NEED to have.

We can be a passionate voice for those who can’t speak for themselves – the orphaned children who have been stripped of their families due to the AIDS pandemic in Swaziland.

Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV/AIDS anywhere in the world.

If you are a 15-year-old Swazi, your chance of reaching 30 years old is only 6%.

I read  that by the year 2020, if the death rate continues to soar, there will be

NO ADULTS LEFT in SWAZILAND!!!!

***

We can be a passionate voice for the young women who are being sold, SOLD! into sex trafficking.

In Moldova, a small country in Europe…

There are more than 250 brothels in Chisinau, the capital city.

One of the greatest targets for sex-trafficking are girls

who leave the orphanages.

There are 30,000 women who have literally disappeared in Moldova,

many of them believed to have been captured for the sex trade industry.

Yeah, it’s an industry funded on the

repeated rape

& brutality

of women.

I will be talking about them a lot in this blog. It’s not pretty. It’s ugly. It’s despicable.

Before knowing all this, we could have easily turned aside… NOT NOW!

With knowledge comes a responsibility to make change.

When change comes, chains are broken, and joy abounds!!!!

So this week, go about your days with this new knowledge. IF you let these words & truths pierce your heart, you’ll find yourself thinking about them through this week in some random way. Please take time to pray for these orphans & slaves. And think about how you can get off your butt & do something. And I mean that in the nicest way.

Keep Lovin’ Moms!