I recently attended a conference (http://thriveconnection.com/).  Their mission is to empower global women to thrive and to be their advocate.  While there, I met women from all over the globe who work with professionals, refugees, average Joe's in universities, hospitals, and slums.  It was a place that I could share a story, bear my soul, open my heart and find the listener shaking her head in total affirmation.  She got me.

There is a rich guy that wanted to try to attain a higher level of personal righteousness* instead of doing what Jesus suggested to be holy - repent.  He was a good guy ... a religious guy ... probably the average church goer.  Yet, he had made his riches more important than his heart.

Repentance requires the removal of anything that we place above God.*

If I'm honest, I point my finger at this rich guy.  His stuff was worth so much ... so much that he could not bear to part with any of it to follow God.  Hmph!

I'm not sure if God does this with you ... but He often times will give me an asterisk moment.  For me, because I love words and am a visual person, it comes when I'm writing something - noticing some fault with someone in the Bible - noticing how self-righteous they are - noticing how far superior I am because I don't have their "issue" ... and then God gives me the asterisk.  This morning I literally put an asterisk by the word money.  After pausing, I realized this was God giving me an asterisk moment.  He loves me so much.  He wants me to see my own heart ... so He can have it and continue to change it.  Not because I'm bad ... but because He is so good!

My issue, unlike our rich guy, is not money.  However, my children can often fight for first position of my heart.

Right now, our oldest daughter, Addison, would like to have her Momma close.  There's no cancer, there's no impending doom.  But there's a season in her life that's tough and having a Momma to fix her favorite meal and rub her feet and tuck her into bed would be nice ... really nice.

This Momma would love ... LOVE ... L-0-V-E ... to be there!  Oh how my heart has broken over the distance that keeps me from getting in a car and spending time over a cup of coffee with my first-born.

Then, it's in these times that I recount the cost of living a global life.  The women that attended the Thrive conference know what I mean.  Many of you do, too!

At the end of the story of the Rich Man, there is a question that is asked by one of Jesus' friends.  It seems too hard to enter the life of knowing God in a personal way.  You've got to give up too much.  You've got to empty yourself of too much.  "So who can enter?"  And then, I love what Jesus says ... because he gets the cost.  "Humanly speaking, it is impossible.  But not with God.  Everything is possible with God."

Humanly speaking, it is impossible to go through this season of my life apart from my daughter.  It's unthinkable.  Unheard of.  Downright despicable.  But, that's where God meets me ... overshadows my deepest needs and wants ... and makes it possible for me to live life on the other side of the ocean as my daughter.

This journey of faith requires constant asterisk moments.

here's to more *,
christina

*New Living Study Bible, Mark 10:17-22, page 1671.