Now before you jump to being either shocked, concerned, offended, or excited, please realize that I am not going to blog about sexual passion.
However, I want to go on for a few minutes about passion of another sort. As I browse blogs, which I usually do a few times a week as I am viewing who is reading mine and seeing what they have to say on theirs, I am amazed at the number of blah blogs. They are not blah because of writing style, nor are they blah because of the information there. They are blah because no matter how many posts you read, you cannot find anything that the writer is passionate about.
I have had a series of passions in my life. (Does that make me a serial passionate?) I have always, since I was a young kid, been passionate about my faith. While kids in high school were wearing t-shirts like “The word for today is legs -- help spread the word” I was wearing shirts that had JESUS in big bold letters across my chest. (One of these shirts I have a vivid memory of, because it was some kind of design that made it hard to distinguish the word Jesus, and I realized after a few months that it made people stare at my newly acquired chest more often than I wished and so I stopped wearing it).
Anyway, as I grew older I developed and added other passions. I was passionate about my youth group, passionate about my typing speed, passionate about helping my mother drive 30 Laotian boat children to church on Wednesday night for “Christian Youth Crusaders” Club. I was passionate about my church, passionate about the college I planned to attend, passionate about being holy and doing what was right.
Then I entered college and I was passionate about many things. I was passionate about, for example, the Miss Groundhog competition that I kept alive for four years -- an outrageously funny event held, of course, on February 2nd. I was passionate about being an RA, about Student Government, about our sports teams.
As I became adult I was passionate about my work as a Student Development professional. I was passionate about Brown Hall at SDSU where I was an RHD and I was passionate about my staff, feeling they were the best around. I was passionate about College and Career Fellowship at Brookings Wesleyan Church.
When I began to work for my alma mater I was very passionate about the school and the students there and attempted to be a good advocate for them. I prided myself on being a Dean who represented the students to the administration, not the other way around. I was also passionate about Wesleyan World Missions, especially the country of Mexico, where I took several mission trips and eventually ended up living and working at their Bible College for two years. I was passionate about Compassion International to the point that I was sponsoring a child even as a poor college student and was even able to visit my little boy in Mexico City during one of my missions trips. I was passionate and still am about Macintosh computers.
And now, as you know, I am passionate about the adoption of older children. I live, breathe, and think about it almost every minute of every day and several chunks of many nights, both lying awake and in my dreams. I am firmly committed to doing all I can to make a difference.
When I was Dean of Students at Oklahoma Wesleyan University I spoke in chapel once every semester. I usually spoke about integrity, but one time I spoke about passion. I challenged the students to choose ONE WAY they wanted to make a difference in the world and then commit to it and do it.
I still challenge people to do so... choose one thing and then make a difference. Do something to make a difference in that one area every day, and you will make a huge impact over a lifetime. I started getting very serious about matching families with children in May of 2004. Since then I have seen over 120 kids make it into permanent homes. But I have to work on it every single day. I’ve found a way to get paid for living out my calling and pursuing my passion ... not everyone is that lucky.
But pick a passion and live it out, day in and day out, for years and years and years. There are thousands of ways to make a difference. If you don’t share my passion, but can’t find one that fits you, Email me and I will help you find it.
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