Let Me Not Forget

I met her for the first time on a bench beneath the redwoods. I was fighting back tears, because it was the very first time I'd left my children— two little girls.

It seemed wrong somehow, that I should leave the girls for a whole week, go all the way to the opposite coast for a conference, to begin my first steps towards a writing career.

Kay Strom understood. She told me her story of leaving for the first time, and how her boy pressed his nose against the glass as the car drove away, and she was left standing at Mount Hermon Christian Writers Conference, where she began her own writing career so many years before.

Emotionally, I collapsed into Kay's arms. And I have done so on occasion since that first meeting. Being with Kay makes a person feel safe, remembered.

When I received her new book from the publicists at InterVarsity Press, I wasn't surprised by its title. Kay was about to remember Forgotten Girls.

I could tell you about the book in my words, but I would rather you feel the power of Kay's remembering...

"Have you ever noticed how seldom something 'life changing' really changes your life? The term gets tossed around a lot— to describe watching the sun set in a gorgeous blaze of color, for instance, or to rave about an exciting adventure. Consider the number of books with the phrase splashed across the front cover. Good things, all. Inspiring and helpful and memorable. But 'life changing'?

Yet truly life-changing events do occur. Events that forever mark a divide between the 'then' and 'now' of life. Between despair and hope. Between ignorance and understanding. Between life and death.

Consider Parimala. She barely had time to draw her first breath before she experienced a life-changing event. As her mother staggered in from the fields, the baby was already entering the world. But no one rejoiced in her birth. When her father saw that the baby was a girl, he grabbed her up and carried her outside. He dug a hole in the hard ground beside their thatch-roofed hut and dropped her in. Then he covered her with dirt.

Done, and done.

But the baby's grandfather saw it all..."

Today I celebrate Kay for remembering the forgotten girls. She travels the world, sometimes in very dangerous places, to gather their stories, to help us participate in changing lives. Kay might not accept what I'm about to say... but I do believe that knowing her has been life changing.

(To help in a practical way, check out Sisters in Service. Maybe that's something to do for your $10 Challenge?)

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THE 12 DAYS:
1. Mary's Advent
2. Laura in the Moss
3. Social Media Guys
4. Snow-White Butterfly Tree
5. Butterflies and Parties
6. Let Me Not Forget (this post)