Take It for What It's Worth

Conversations with God while dealing with a child’s brain tumor, modern day slavery, theology, and death

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About Me

Patricia Hammell Kashtock

Aka: Pat Kashtock. Mother of three, wife of one. BA in Social Work and Biblical Studies. Graduate work at Virginia Tech interrupted, then derailed by oldest child’s brain tumor...

My life has not followed the course I planned. But I am not complaining. Pain is to be expected in a world broken apart from its Creator.

The miracle resides in the ability to find joy when least expected...

Haiti Earthquake

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Links

Modern Day Slavery

Help fight slavery
- Not for Sale Campaign
  
  Every single person has a skill that they can give to free an individual living in bondage.
- International Justice Mission
  
  Combating slavery and injustice worldwide
- The Polaris Project
  
  Polaris Project works holistically to combat human trafficking and modern-day slavery, incorporating eight different strategies.
- Stop the Traffik
  
  Do you want to help end modern-day slavery? "STOP THE TRAFFIK is a global movement working to combat the fastest growing global crime, people trafficking. Around the world men, women and children are being treated as commodities...to be bought, sold..."
- Loose Change to Loosen Chains
  
  Innovative way to fight injustice developed by a teenaged abolitionist
- The World Cocoa Foundation
  
  (WCF) works to help cocoa farmers, their families and their communities. WCF programs are helping cocoa farmers earn more for their crop, improving the quality of education for their children, and ensuring that cocoa is grown in a safe, responsible manner
- Free the Slaves
  
  Campaign to end slavery in 25 years. "As big and ugly as it is, we can end slavery. In Ending Slavery, FTS puts forward a plan to bring slavery and human trafficking to an end."
- The Chocolate Campaign
  
  Who harvasts our chocolate? Is there any chance plantation owners forced children to harvast it?
- Faith Alliance Against Slavery and Trafficking
  
  FAAST is committed to the eradication of trafficking and slavery worldwide.
- Soulfest 2008
  
  Help a Village in Africa through music gathering in New England
- Stop the Traffik
Helping Others
- The Hunger Site
  
  Click a day to donate food, free
- The Rice Game
  
  Play a game and donate free rice to a hungry family, while improving your vocabulary
- Compassion International
  
  Share your love, prayers and support with a boy or girl who lives in poverty.
Hope Instead of Suicide

Friend's blog dealing with suicide prevention. Please visit.
- Hope's Website
  
  Go to "view all blogs" for suicide help.
Animals and Rainforest
- The Rainforest Site
  
  Free click to save rainforest
- The Ecology Fund
  
  Click to save rainforest and animal habitat
Publications

Including Devotionals
- The Upper Room
  
  Every day, almost 3 million people in more than 100 countries read or hear this meditation in one of the 77 editions and 40 languages in which it is published.
- I Lift My Eyes Web Ministries
  
  Focusing on prayer and intercession. Home of The Daily Christian Quote, Whatever is Pure Ezine and over a thousand organized, quality Christian resources.

Articles and Entries

Privacy

For What It's Worth

Each life is a journey. The voices of many guides try to direct us, saying, “This is the path – walk in it!” Yet each one leads in a different direction.

I believe only one Voice can be true. That Voice will lead us in ways most unexpected, into worlds yet undiscovered. It will lead us up the hill, around the river and through the forest. And sometimes, it will lead without mercy.

Or so it seems.

I have made listening for that Voice and following it, my life’s quest. I will share some of what I have heard that Voice say with you. But I am not in the business of telling people how to think or what to believe. Each has to decide for himself. Only you can decide if you find the truth of the Voice in these words. And only you can decide how much it is worth to know the Voice, and follow.

But for me, it is worth the whole world.

And then some…

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Entries in childhood cancer (1)

Thursday

Jan082009

Dancing Feet (from the Upper Room)

Thursday, January 8, 2009 at 04:40PM

Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Dancing Feet

Read Psalm 34:1-18

[The Lord] will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.
-Isaiah 25:8 (NIV)
TODAY dawns bright and cold, and I think of my daughter who died not long ago. Heidi leapt, jumped, and danced her way through life. The Christmas before her eighth birthday, she performed the whole Nutcracker Suite for us, complete with a paper crown and wearing my too-long nightgown, which tripped her feet. Before her next birthday arrived, doctors found a tumor in her brain. She never danced again.

But the story does not end there. For nearly 19 years, Heidi lived with the cancer. Although she could not dance, she always smiled and said, "I know that when I get to heaven, I will be able to dance."

Now, her new, strong feet move gracefully in the warmth of God's presence. In heaven, my daughter dances with joy again, without fear or pain, in light that will never fade. She is with God who is love and who will not let her go. Her joy will never end.

Patricia Hammell Kashtock (Virginia, USA)
Thank you, God, that even in grief you can remind us of the joy we will have with you forever. Amen.

Those we love are always held within God's love.

Parents whose child has died