Let My Heart be Broken

“Let my heart be broken with the things that break the heart of God." 

Written on the flyleaf of Bob Pierce’s Bible, those words defined the man’s life. Founder of World Vision and later Samaritan’s Purse, Pierce started out in 1947 as an ordained Baptist minister with Youth for Christ. An entrepreneurial, energetic young evangelist, he set out for adventure in China and returned with a life mission.

While in China evangelizing to American servicemen, the poverty, human suffering, and the plight of orphaned children haunted Pierce, and he vowed to mobilize conservative Christians back in the United States to meet their needs.

When asked by Franklin Graham, son of evangelist Billy Graham, how to "shake people out of their complacency," Pierce once said he had "become a part of the suffering. I literally felt the child's blindness, the mother's grief. … It was all too real to me…" Pastor Richard Halvorsen wrote that Pierce "prayed more earnestly and importunely than anyone else I have ever known. It was as though prayer burned within him. Bob Pierce functioned from a broken heart."

He wasn’t a perfect man, by any means. He had a temper and often clashed with the World Vision board. He traveled as much ten months of the year. "I've made an agreement with God," he said, "that I'll take care of his helpless little lambs overseas if he'll take care of mine at home."

His devotion to his ministries to the exclusion of all else cost him dearly. In 1963, he suffered a nervous breakdown. In 1967, he resigned from World Vision over differences that left him bitter, displaced and emotionally exhausted. While on a good-bye tour of Asia, his daughter Sharon called and asked him to come home but he refused, planning instead to extend his trip to Vietnam. His wife rushed home to find Sharon had tried to commit suicide. Later that year, she tried again and succeeded.

In 1970, Pierce legally separated from his wife and in 1978 he died of leukemia.

Yet Pierce's ministry lives on—bigger than he could have imagined—in World Vision and Samaritan's Purse. His dedication and compassion still inspire others to serve the poor. 

Thank you, Bob Pierce and family, for all that you have given to the world. You have touched so many and your legacy lives on through these amazing organizations.

Have you touched anyone lately?

From the Top of the Stairs

From the Top of the Stairs

A five-year-old girl sits at the top of the stairs, crouched above the landing where the steps turn to ascend the last few feet, listening as if her life depends on the conversation below.

It’s Sunday evening and she and her siblings have just returned home from a weekend spent with their father, in his tiny apartment with no furniture.

She hopes her mom isn’t going to yell at him again. Please, please, please, just be nice for once. More than anything, she wants Daddy to come back home, to read her a bedtime story, tuck her in, kiss her goodnight. Things her mom says she doesn’t have time for anymore. She misses him.

It became a routine, those Sunday evenings, her mom always asking him for money then yelling when it wasn’t enough.

The little girl was too young to understand the enormous strain her mother was under, a single parent struggling to raise six kids on her own with very little, if any, financial help. Her dad probably did what he could but money was tight even before he left.

She remembers the landlord threatening to put them out on the street, her mom pleading for more time. Sometimes their electricity was shut off, occasionally the heat. When she was five, she didn’t know why. She just blamed her mom for driving Daddy away. As she sat there at the top of the stairs, her pudgy hands clasped tightly over her ears against the yelling, she heard the same things over and over and eventually, the door would slam and she’d race down the steps.

“I can’t believe you yelled at him again!” she screamed, bursting into tears. “I didn’t even get to say goodbye.” Then she’d run upstairs to her room and cry herself to sleep, no bedtime story, no one to tuck her in, not even a kiss goodnight.

The little girl started kindergarten that year and in the afternoons she went next door to be looked after by a kind elderly lady, Mrs. Wyatt, who treated her daycare kids to a Bible study. Eager to learn to read, the youngster memorized Bible verses and learned very quickly, “Even when you think no one loves you, Jesus does.” It’s a lesson that has lasted her a lifetime.

The child’s hopes—that Daddy would come back to them—became prayers. Her whole life she prayed her parents would get back together, until a few years ago when her mother, bedridden with terminal cancer, moved into her father’s home, at his request, so that he could take care of her. She died there in his house.

It wasn’t exactly the answer to her prayers the now grown woman had hoped for. But it was an answer.

God bless you, Mrs. Wyatt, for being that little girl’s rock, for teaching her early on that even when she thought no one loved her, Jesus did. And for teaching her the power of prayer. Thank you for seeing the potential in her and for sharing His light that now shines on through her unique gifts. You touched her life.

Have you touched anyone lately?

Life Changer

What if I told you I had the secret to having an amazing day, every day?

It’s actually not a secret at all. In fact, it’s very well known, a “best seller” by all accounts. It’s called Jesus Calling and it’s a beautiful little hardcover book that provides a daily message of inspiration.  I never thought I would be so enamored of a daily devotional but this one is different. Each day is written as if Jesus himself is speaking to you personally.

This one-minute spend could change your whole outlook for the day ahead. And it’s so easy to make time for.

Mine sits on my dressing table. Every day, without fail, in between make-up and hair, I take a thirty-second break to read the day’s page. I follow that with a short prayer and then shimmer in the afterglow as I finish my morning routine, pondering the thoughts the message provokes.

The first year through—I’m on year three—I’d occasionally question, “Would You really say this to me, Jesus, if You were here?” Without fail, the answer was always a resounding yes.

Within this tiny gem of a book are some of the most beautiful and inspiring words of reassurance, comfort, and hope, words that have made me increasingly aware of His presence and allowed me to enjoy His peace. His voice feeds my soul. I feel empowered, strengthened, and armed to face whatever challenges the day ahead may hold.

The author, Sarah Young, and her husband were missionaries in Australia and Japan for many years. Her writings are personal reflections from her daily quiet time of Bible reading, prayer, and journaling. With sales of more than 17 million books worldwide, Jesus Calling has appeared on all major bestseller lists.

I can’t even imagine writing something that touches so many!

Thank you, Sarah Young, for shining your light. The world is a better place as we all strive to follow where He leads.

Have you touched anyone lately?

Difference Maker

Born and raised in one of the toughest areas of South Detroit, Dante Jackson managed to not only graduate from high school but he made it to the ripe old age of nineteen with no criminal record. In an area where the dropout rate was once 75% and the likelihood of going to prison or college is almost equal, these were remarkable feats.

Dante credits his early success to his grandmother who raised him. She often told him—and anyone else who would listen—that he “was a good boy, a real good boy.” He tried hard to never let her down. She was the only family he’d ever known. His mother died of a drug overdose before he could walk and like many children born into extreme poverty, he never knew his father.

Dante’s life went awry in a series of heinous crimes that began with the rape of his girlfriend by her mother’s live-in boyfriend. Her mother refused to believe her and when the police didn’t either, Dante took matters into his own hands. He pounded on the door of her house. He could see the boyfriend passed out on the couch, a burned-down cigarette hanging from his limp fingers but despite Dante’s best efforts, he could not wake the man. So he left, determined to return another time to set things straight.

Later that night, police showed up at his grandmother’s apartment and arrested Dante for arson. His girlfriend’s house had burned to the ground, killing the boyfriend. More than one neighbor had seen Dante at the home earlier. Motive, means, wrong place, wrong time. Dante was convicted and sentenced to ten to twenty years in Michigan's Jackson Penitentiary.

His girlfriend visited him once in prison but the shame in her eyes was too much to bear and Dante sent her away. She deserved a better life. Unlike him, she had a future and it didn’t include waiting on a man behind bars.

Prison was a merciless place. No one cared that he was innocent. But the one invaluable gift that prison granted him was time. For Dante, it was a period of divine preparation. While incarcerated, he looked beyond his own predicament and earned two college degrees—the highest a master’s in divinity—and helped other men in prison who sought personal transformation. Paroled after eight years, he went on to get a special dispensation from the State of Michigan to teach in the Detroit Public Schools.

Today, he’s a fifth-grade teacher at Harrison Howe Elementary School, located in one of the toughest districts in the state, on Detroit’s south side. He plays basketball at the local Boys and Girls Club and on Sunday nights he leads a growing youth ministry at New Heights Baptist Church. As a teacher, youth leader and mentor, he shows young people that a better life—a Christ-centered life—is within their reach and instructs them on how to make it happen.

From the frontlines, where violence, sex, and drugs are a part of life, Dante Jackson takes an active stance against the depredations of poverty. Determined to be a difference maker, he’s devoted his life to breaking the poverty-to-prison pipeline.

Have you touched anyone lately?

10 Ways to Shine Your Light in 2017

1. Be brilliant - Every day, without fail, brighten someone's day.
2. The power of positive thinking - Start each day with an encouraging word in the mirror. Say it out loud. It works!
3. Surround yourself with positive people. Follow them and make them “favorites” on whatever social media you engage with. Filter out the negative ones (you don’t have to “unfriend” them).
4. Ask, listen, care. Take the time to ask hard questions and listen, really listen, when someone shares a piece of their life with you. The caring will be automatic.
5. Be generous to those around you, with words of encouragement, praise, and with your time.
6. Practice humility in all things. Esteem others above yourself.
7. Live fearless - Capture that front row seat in life. Go for it! Imagine the worst that can happen. It’s usually not so bad. And it’s almost always worth the risk.
8. Be persistent - If the door won’t open, bang on it loud and long.
9. Follow the 10 Second Rule which says, “just do the next thing you’re reasonably certain Jesus wants you to do. (And commit to it immediately—in the next 10 seconds—before you change your mind.)” Live it, share it. Make pre-decisions so you’ll be ready to do the right thing.
10. Pray for others and ask others to pray for you. And never underestimate the power of prayer.