Do you know?

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Writings from my journal while in Costa Rica. Photos do not necessarily reflect the people about which I wrote.

You are young.
Caught in that breath-taking moment in between being a baby and being a child. Your bare feet peek out from under a dress that is almost too long for you.

You are shy. You have barely met all the people in your own little world, much less a stranger with white skin and yellow hair. I look so different from you…so you look away.

Do you know?

Little Girl in the Market in Costa Rica

You are old.
With skin wrinkled from years of long hard living. And tanned dark from the ever-present sun. You are hunched over, a broom supports your weight. Half sweeping dirt off of dirt, and half guiding you as you walk in your carefully tended garden.

Do you know?

Old man in the market in Costa Rica

You are a new papa.
Bringing your little one to Mass. Proudly protective of your babe, shielding her from the afternoon sun. You carry holy water, taking it home to bless your family. Religious fervor in your brown face. But haunting emptiness in your eyes.

Do you know?

Catholic Church in Costa Rica

You are playing in the streets.
Among cars and trucks, among dogs and trash. Invisible and invincible. And completely unaware that your simple life both haunts me and beckons me. You dance with danger every time a car passes, yet you are so incredibly safe.

Do you know?

You are a mother.
Maybe a grandmother. Your house is clean, mopped floors that have never seen a rug or carpet. Your simple, clean home looks like a prison to me, for you watch your world from behind windows with bars, behind a fence with wire across the top.

Do you know?

Bars on Windows of Church House in Costa Rica

Do you know? That He makes the dirty clean? Pure and spotless like fresh fallen snow?

Reading the news in Costa Rica

Calla Lily Bloom

Do you know? That He gives strength to the weary and makes the old new?

Do you know? That He requires your heart, not just your actions? That He who is so far above us is reachable? That religion is empty without relationship?

Do you know? That there is One who protects your life? Who keeps you from hurt and from harm? And that the real danger is not in cars or trucks or disease?

Do you know? That you can be free from the prisons of life? While your home is protected with bars and barbed wire, your soul can be set free?

Do you know?

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New Year Q & A with She Shares

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ARD: Do you view January as a time to start fresh? Make new, or revisit old, goals?

SS: YES! The turn of the calendar EVERY month is a chance to start fresh, but there is something special about the turn of the year. Sure, it’s just a date. But I’ve never started a weight loss program on a Wednesday, so there must be something to the change of the calendar (be it weekly, monthly, or yearly) that allows me a chance to press reset or to readjust.