A broad in Guatemala

It usually takes me a week or so to feel prepared to write a post. Those of you who on a daily or nearly daily basis offer up funny, pithy, witty or thoughtful musings amaze me. I'm not creative enough, or prolific enough or -- I should just face it -- disciplined enough to do that ... unless you want to hear what my kids say every day.

Or I could start posting parenting advice. Here's what I told a friend yesterday. She was upset with herself because she had had such a difficult time with her children the night before, she ended up telling them to "go to bed now!" Then told the youngest, very firmly, to brush. his. teeth. Now.

He ended up in tears, telling her he was "afraid" of her, afraid she was going to scream at him. My friend was guilt-ridden.

So I counseled her that she needed to begin yelling at her children on a regular basis. That way, it would no longer be a traumatic experience for them when yelling commenced. Problem solved.

Next?

So perhaps you begin to grasp how I need to carefully screen my ideas before posting. This post, however, shall be an exception. It's a Hail Mary pass.

I'm leaving for Guatemala in a few hours. I'll be spending most of the week in Antigua at a teenaged girls orphanage -- Manchin. There will also be visits to a small children's orphanage and a boy's orphanage.

I spent a week at Manchin in January. It was a spiritual-high experience. But this time I feel totally unprepared. Because I am. I've asked God to forgive me for my lack of discipline in preparing. I'm asking him to use me anyway, and he's proven time and again he's capable of doing amazing things with my sorry butt. (Slimming would not be one of them, unfortunately.)

I would covet the prayers of any of you so inclined. I am praying those of us on the trip will be smack-dab in the center of God's will for these children and anyone else we encounter. You know: whoever the One is. They are the disenfranchised. The forgotten. The cast off. They are hungry for love. I want to give them my love. But I can't stay with them, and my love is not sufficient anyway. God's love is sufficient. That's what I want them to grasp. Please pray for that.

I'll post when I get back -- probably next Sunday. So many of you have become so precious to me. Thank you for that blessing.

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