Spilled Milk

Spilled Milk

      Growing up, I was told that God is always listening, God is always there, and that God will never leave you. But I was also told that sin separates us from God and that we are incapable of connecting with God in moments of sin. But if God never leaves us, how can we be separated from him?

     I know that in moments when I struggle with sin, I am choosing, for a moment to put God on the "back burner." I remove him from my thoughts temporarily in order to escape the weight of my convictions. But did God ever really leave? I believe that the so called "separation" we experience from putting God out of our minds doesn't actually remove him, but rather we are just choosing not to acknowledge him. Once we have said he is far from us, we start to believe that this distance cannot be reconciled, or that we must obtain a sense of holiness or worth to be able to approach him again. Thus creating a longer period of time "away" from God.

     When God looks at us, he wants so bad for us to just let us be wrapped up in his love and to be close to us. When we run and say, "I am not worthy" or "I am too broken" he looks at us and says "I still love you." I imagine that when we fall short, God sees us like a child running to hide in a closet after spilling a glass of milk. He stands in front of the door, feeling our guilt, and says "Come out to me, I am here. Hold out your hands and I will give you more, more than you can imagine!" When we have Christ we are reconciled, and God says to us, come back to me.

If you would like to contribute to my Mission Year experience, please visit my page at, https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/charlieoconnor

If you want to write a check, you can make it out to Mission Year, writing my ID number 13-9069   in the memo line: PO Box 17628 Atlanta, GA 30316.

  
-a poem based on Psalm 50-
 

"Why, why oh Israel can you not see? When your heart is with me it eats it's fill, feasting long hours, nights and days while my arms around you. You are my prized guest, chose you over the rest, in you I put my time and invest all I am that I am.

But something else you choose, as if you wanted to loose everything that which I rooted within you. I miss you, I miss you! What was the issue? Do you not loved to be loved? No, that's not the case, I won't watch you waste the beautiful being you are. You're just being dragged farther and farther away because you grabbed hold of one that won't let you go and warns you to stay away from me.

That is going to end, and will be defeated. Hold on, I'm coming you wont be depleted of anymore life of anymore love or of anymore joy. Because I am your father and you're my baby boy. I'm coming, I'm coming, I love you I'm running, soon you'll be mine again. So don't give up, don't give in, please hear me please listen, I'm right here inside, you're with me, I am within. Because you see, I've never left you, I have been here the whole time. So I wrote you this poem just to remind, that you're always at the forefront of my mind."





Love in Christ,



Charlie

Five For The Fifth!

"Five for the Fifth Campaign
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_fOeKNVVr0&sns=fb

 

We are the Fifth Ward Pleasant Hill team, and we are committed to living simply, growing in love for one another and for our neighborhood through intentional relationships, and learning what it means to truly follow Jesus. We volunteer over 30 hours a week with community organizations, visit neighbors, share meals and devotion times: pray, play, and love together.

 

We are not paid for anything we do here in the Fifth Ward and we rely solely on donations from people like you! Your financial support covers our cost of living so we can commit full time to our neighborhood. We have created our Five for the Fifth Campaign: each team member has five days to find five people willing to commit to donating $5 or more a week ($20/month) to our Fifth Ward Pleasant Hill Team! We are starting this campaign today and ending it this Friday, November 15!

 

If you are one of the people willing to financially partner with us in our efforts to love our neighbors, you can donate to our team by visiting any of the following donation links! Please let me know when you donate so we can keep track!

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/charlieoconnor

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/tarrinmcdonald

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/taylorburch

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/heatherchappell

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/calebgroth

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/kiraecheandia

 

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/redietmulugeta

 

love in Christ,

 

-CHARLIE

 

 

Orange

     CHANGE

     Recently, God has been changing the way I view change. Change to me was something that does away with the old and replaces it with the new, however, I have been seeing that this is not the case. While living in Mission Year I have been learning that one of the key aspects of change is humility. We are encouraged to come along our neighborhoods in what change they are already trying to cultivate. To put our dreams aside, and instead use our abilities to help others accomplish their own. Because although we may have God in us, He is not only in us, he has been working in our communities long before we got here.

THE CHALLENGE

     This can be challenging because it means to submit to someone else's approach in handling  problems. And in being flawed creatures, no one is going to have to the perfect approach to any problem. But if all we do is try to resolve problems our own way, rather than coming along side the direction of somebody else, we would make very little progress in moving forward.

     FROM THE INSIDE OUT

Go to the people

Live among them

Learn from them

Love them

Start with what they know

Build on what they have

But of the best leaders

When their task is done

The people will remark

"We have done it ourselves"    

Lao Tzu

     As a teenager, I idolized the rebellious force "Stevo" from the movie "Salk Lake City Punks" who hated the flaws and injustice of our current system and refused to take part in it. But even he at the end of the film realized "We can do a hell of a lot more damage in the system than outside of it!" If we want to see something change, we cannot simply toss it out but instead "build on what it has." If a community already has dreams, plans, leadership and organizations, we must "learn from them" and offer who we are so that "the task can be done." If we are able to humble ourselves first to God, and then to one another, we will then be able to fulfill the dreams of others as well as our own.

 Here is a children's poem that embodies some of the feelings I have been having surrounding change.

There once was a man who hated green, because the man who made blue was very mean.

He didn't like green, but orange instead. The problem was, all he had was red.

So try as he might, the man couldn't make yellow, he had no choice but to join this blue fellow.

They worked all day ,mixing paint in a circle, blue worked with red until their faces turned purple.

Once they had finished, blue still made green with his yellow. But red could made orange now and thanked the blue fellow.

If you would like to contribute to my Mission Year experience you can donate by visiting my page at

https://missionyear.thankyou4caring.org/charlieoconnor I could also use your prayers for support, protection and patience!

Thanks all for reading!

Love in Christ,

-CHARLIE