Our little Marielle was born one year ago.

First up in the tour is the living room.

It's been a year already.  Hard to believe, especially today while looking at these photos, that we were actually crazy enough to buy this house last year.

I've been wanting to post some updates of what I've been working on around the house, but felt like it would be disingenuous until I lay out, at least in a small way through this post, the deeply unsettling feeling I've had these past two weeks.

I hear the news of what's going on with ISIS and the atrocities they're committing, most recently this week with James Foley.  I hear the anger and unrest in Ferguson, Missouri and the injustices there.

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I am a fixer.  Obviously.  That's how I'm wired.  It's awful to live with the knowledge that these kinds of things are happening every day.  Some make the news, some don't. And I can't think of a single thing I can do about it.  I can't call down a bolt of lightning from the sky to strike the bad guy.  I can't go around beating people up.  I just don't have the arm strength.

Gary Haugen, the founder of International Justice Mission (an organization that pursues justice for trafficked people), spoke to a group a couple of years ago.  His talk laid out the problem of people being victimized for their land, money, bodies.  And his solution: us.

You.

Me.

It's hard to know what that looks like today, on a rainy day in Wisconsin where I am running the kids to and from camp and battling carpenter ants.

But I do know this: I know how the story ends.  I know of a God who will restore all things and make them new again.  But I also know that I have a part to play in this story and I want to be available for that role, whatever it may be, like Meg, or Jessica, or Muhammad.



I want to be that kind of person.  The available kind.