Not on my watch!

By Melanie Gibson

1 in 5 mums skip meals so that they can feed their children.

In Coleraine, Portstewart, Portrush, Garvagh and beyond folks are making difficult choices every day over something so simple as can we eat this tin of soup or keep it another day!

Thinking about this and it's reality in our towns just makes me feel sick, sad & angry, and I know it makes God feel this also.  But to be honest I didn't used to think like this or see it or feel it at all! I had a nice wee job, had not long come home from living in England and was kind of wondering why and had started coming along to CCV where I felt a wee bit awkward at times but loving it all the same.

Loved worship & in particular Hillsongs "Hosanna":

Heal my heart & make it clean, open up my eyes to the things unseen, show me how to love like you have loved me
Break my heart for what breaks yours, everything I am for your Kingdoms cause as I walk from earth into eternity

One day I sang and prayed and actually found myself meaning it! So often I think we sing songs and are blinded to what we are actually declaring in worship and song but for me this day was different

I had been home probably about 8 or 9 months and had been wondering why I had come home. I had a great wee job, friends and church in Cumbria where I had met Jesus a couple of years prior to that, and although where I was when I came home I had a good job, good people & family around me.  Even with all this  and a desire to seek God more and more and be closer to Him and His word I found myself increasingly alone and with a real longing and loneliness inside.

I sought God in worship and in His word to conquer these feelings and asked Him for His purpose for my life to be revealed...

Break my heart for what breaks yours Father

Not long after this the Sunday Food Giveaway started which after 3 1/2years we partnered with our churches in the community and the Trussell Trust and the Causeway Foodbank launched in March this year.

What an adventure this has been for us as a community to bring hope and break the chains of poverty in our city.

When we pray "break my heart for what breaks yours," we have to be prepared to take a step an be moved with compassion to do something about the issue, injustice, cause or stirring of your heart for the lost that the Father is breaking your heart for, in whatever environment you find that in whether its church, work, the school gate, with friends and family etc.

As women we are uniquely placed, blessed anointed and ordained by our mighty Heavenly Father to change the world for His glory wherever we are.

When our hearts break for something that breaks Gods heart and we step out and say not on my watch in a simple act, we can push back the darkness and make a difference.  When we take a stand for God against sickness, injustice, poverty, etc. God equips and empowers us with all we need.

We (hopefully) have 80 ish years to make a difference in our worlds and change our community for the generations to come, and we have the power and God graced uniqueness as women to stand and say, sickness- not on my watch; a young generation with no hope - not on my watch; addiction crippling lives - not on my watch; loneliness and isolation whilst parenting alone -not on my watch; suicide - not on my watch etc. the list is endless and we are all stirred to something more than ourselves.

We can't all do everything but we can all do something!!

I'm sure as you can tell I'm a little bit passionate about all this, for me when I hear or see a single mum who just drinks tea all day and eats one small meal so that she can have enough food to make sure her daughter eats properly - i think, not on my watch; or a family who's business folds and the stress and anxiety of how and where they will provide the basic necessity of food for their family gets so much that they don't want to get up in the morning or face another day - not on my watch or the 17 year old who due to difficulties at home finds herself in a strange town with no money, no food & no one to turn too- not on my watch!

Father break our hearts, for what breaks yours, equip & empower us as mighty women of God, daughters and heirs to the King to stand up and boldly say - not on my watch!