Love is the Movement-TWLOHA

Love is the movement.

"We're called to hold our hands against the wounds of a broken world, to stop the bleeding"---Donald Miller





Tomorrow is TWLOHA day. TWLOHA stands for: To Write Love On Her Arms. This is a movement that has helped and saved so many people's lives. People who struggle with depression, thoughts of suicide, anxiety, addiction, cutting, etc. have been helped by this amazing, amazing movement. I don't really have the words to explain how much something like this could help someone like me, and I support this movement wholeheartedly! I, along with so many others will help to share and spread the movement, the movement of love by physically writing the word "LOVE" on my arms tomorrow, November 13th. (I hope to also take and post a photo of this as well).

For those of you interested in learning more about this, please check out the vision of TWLOHA. It will tell you how and why the movement began and give you the story of a girl who it all began with.

Below is a video I found from one of the "gatherings" TWLOHA has had. It begins with the story of Renee, and follows with a dance to the music A Time for Yohe, by Between the Trees.

Honor your American Soldier

Today is November 11th, the day when we honor all those who have served and fought for our freedom and all those who are still fighting. There really are no words to say except Thank you, and that doesn't even seem like enough. This is to honor all the people in my life that I know of personally that have fought or served in some way for our great country weather in war or in peace time:

My Grandpa, Clarence Vander Stoep
Jakes Grandpa, Andrew Murman
My Uncle, Conrad Vande Zandschulp
My Uncle, Jon Heie
My Brother-in-Law, Ryan Pendergrass
My Cousin, Jered Height
My Cousin, Cara Vande Zandschulp
My Friend, Sam Boland
My Friend, Jesse Boland
My Friend, Corey Ervin
My Friend, Cory Van Sloten
My Friend, Kyle Statema

This is for all of them, and all the other American Soldiers out there.

A Mothers Prayer

God, why?
Don’t worry about why
God, she needs a job
There will be one
God she needs a job now
In my time
God you have to be with her
I always am
God you have to protect their marriage, this is going to be tough on them
I will
God you have to keep her from doing anything stupid
I have it covered
God I just don’t understand
I know
God please heal her
I’m there for her
That’s not I’ll heal her
I know
OK God, I can’t do anything to make this OK
You don’t have to
Well, you’ll have to Help me trust you in this
I will
I love you
I love you too

Giving up control in this was another hard thing that God asked me to do and I knew I had to. The verse for the weekend came back to me ‘Come to me all who are weary and I will give you rest.” I started praying that for Nikki and for me.

This is the prayer that my wonderful, amazing and God-fearing mother said for me when she found out I lost my job because of my sickness. And I know it must have been hard for her to pray some of these things, just because mostly like she said to me, she just doesn't understand what I am going through.

Later after she had prayed this prayer for me she began working on a talk she had to give at an adult retreat called Cursillo. She was searching a friends blog, and somehow came across mine, something she would later tell me was a "total God thing." She found this blog I had written.

This is what she wrote about that:

As I read through this blog on that morning I realized that Nikki had been writing this at almost exactly the same time I was sharing my heart with God about this exact situation. I couldn’t help but think about how faithful He is and how this fits exactly what perseverance is about.
Life isn’t easy…we go through storms……we get afraid and fall when we look only at the storm…an overcoming faith looks to Jesus. An overcoming faith rests in him.
All of the worries I had been carrying around on behalf of my daughter hadn’t helped her. They had caused me to focus on the storm and not the One who calms the storm. Here, in the middle of a life-challenging situation in the middle of a life-storm my daughter sought rest in the arms of Christ and was given the strength to persevere. In sharing that, she also spoke TRUTH into my life, reminding me once again, that perseverance isn’t something that we do on our own, it’s what He does in and through us.
God also reminded me through Nikki, that this journey isn’t one that we need to walk alone. She cried out to God, but she also cried out to her pastor, her family and her friends.


I love my mom. So much. I don't think I tell her that enough.