{"id":440,"date":"2016-02-23T07:51:33","date_gmt":"2016-02-23T07:51:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2016\/02\/2016-02-little\/"},"modified":"2018-02-09T16:46:41","modified_gmt":"2018-02-09T16:46:41","slug":"2016-02-little","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/sarahthebarge\/2016\/02\/2016-02-little\/","title":{"rendered":"little"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This past weekend, I spoke at a large church in Milwaukee.\u00a0 There was a service on Saturday night, and three on Sunday morning.
\nI showed up Saturday afternoon and set up the book table, and did a sound check and a practice run-through of my talk.\u00a0 Then, the stage manager took me backstage to meet the pastor who was going to be introducing me.<\/p>\n

He was at least 6\u20192\u201d, and my hand disappeared in his large one when we shook hands. \u00a0 His first words to me were, \u201cYou\u2019re so little!\u201d<\/p>\n

His comment about my small physical stature made me laugh.\u00a0 \u201cThat\u2019s what Abraham Lincoln said to Harriet Beecher Stowe (the author of Uncle Tom\u2019s Cabin<\/em>) when he met her,\u201d I said. \u00a0\u201cLincoln said, \u2018Here\u2019s the little woman who started the big war.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPlease don\u2019t start a war here,\u201d the pastor said, with a look of dread in his eyes.<\/p>\n

\u201cDon\u2019t worry,\u201d I said.\u00a0 \u201cIf I start a war, it\u2019ll be the good kind.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In my message, I spoke about Children in the Margins.\u00a0 I explained that 6 million children in the developing world lost their lives in 2015, mostly from preventable causes.\u00a0 Which means we lost as many children last year as we lost Jews in the Holocaust.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

It is unconscionable that while we are amusing, eating and entertaining ourselves to death, these kids are losing their lives because they don\u2019t have access to simple things like safe drinking water, food and medicine.<\/p>\n

I invited people to sponsor a child with Compassion International. \u00a0<\/a> For $38 a month, you can sponsor a child in the developing world.\u00a0 These sponsored kids get to go to a center where there is clean water, nutritious food and after-school tutoring.\u00a0 There are adults who love on these kids and invest in them emotionally and spiritually.<\/p>\n

(Also, I did the math. If you switch from buying an espresso drink at a coffee shop every day and get a plain coffee instead, that small substitution alone would be enough to sponsor 2 kids with Compassion!)<\/p>\n

These kids get to grow up to be men and women of integrity who raise their own countries out of poverty\u2026.and they get to survive their childhood.<\/p>\n

Compassion was hoping that we\u2019d get 120 kids sponsored.\u00a0 They sent 30 extra packets \u201cjust in case.\u201d\u00a0 Well\u2026\u2026the congregation was on fire this weekend!\u00a0 They sponsored all 150 kids and asked that more packets be sent for this coming weekend because there are still so many people who want to sponsor a child.<\/p>\n

\"564900_10150728794649764_2081859862_n\"<\/p>\n

Also, people bought 200 copies of The Invisible Girls\u00a0<\/em>and ordered another 100.<\/p>\n

As I thought about the weekend and all the good these people did \u2014 sponsoring kids with Compassion, and purchasing copies of The Invisible Girls<\/em> to help send these Somali refugee girls to college \u2014 I thought about the pastor\u2019s words.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re so little!\u201d<\/p>\n

I thought about the amazing things God does with little things.<\/p>\n

God cares about little people \u2014 people like me with soft voices and small stature.\u00a0 \u00a0 God cares about little children, whose suffering often goes unnoticed by the rest of the world.\u00a0 God cares about sparrows, the small birds whose deaths are witnessed by God.\u00a0 God receives the widow\u2019s last mite with love.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou\u2019re so little!\u201d<\/p>\n

I still laugh when I think about those words.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/p>\n

Yes, I may be little.\u00a0 Yes, I\u2019m a girl.\u00a0 Yes, I have a soft voice.<\/p>\n

But God\u2019s power shows up in little things \u2014 and he wages a war of love that saves people\u2019s lives, and changes the world.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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