For those who give all year
Tis the season when our hearts are stirred and we become more aware of the needs of others.
I took the three grands to Target one day early in October so they could select things for the Operation Christmas Child boxes I had picked up.
With baskets swinging dangerously down the aisles, Emmett and Graham were snatching things off of shelves and chucking them in faster than I could yell instructions about our goal.
I don’t do anything quietly or without some sort of commotion. Or the way I had planned the event in my hyper organized and unrealistic brain.
As I kept Joel from ripping my earring out, I chased the two munchkins.
While putting items, like a pumpkin carving set, back on the shelf I ran a non-stop dialogue encouraging them in their selections.
We made quite the scene as I steered them towards things that would both fit in a shoe box AND not be confiscated by TSA when they were shipped overseas.
Often I would have to remind them that we were not shopping for ourselves but for children who would not have Christmas gifts without the help of others.
Eighty dollars and some change later, we headed out to the van with our bags.
My lecture must have taken hold because as they chattered behind me about the different things we bought and Emmett pointed out that…
since the gifts were for boys…
and WE are boys, Lola…
then it made perfect sense that they keep the contents of the bags spilling over in the front seat of the car….
Graham piped up with a mini-sermon about how much they have and how there are children who don’t get things and some other phrases that kind of summed up my lecture…and I sighed a bit to think that in all the madness of our shopping trip something had stuck.
Sending a box overseas at Christmas…
or taking an angel off of one of the many trees around town and fulfilling the wish list…
writing a check to send off…
these are all good things.
Not just at Christmas but year round.
However, I am mindful that there are many who sacrifice the precious gift of time and inconvenience every single week by serving others.
Tender care given faithfully by showing up…
in the nursing home…
in the after school program…
in the hospital…
in the thrift shop…
in the shelter and the food line…
in the counseling room of the crisis pregnancy center…
in the huts of Africa and the crowded streets of China and the refugee camps of Syria…
in their own home where the care of a child with disabilities means there will never be a launching from the nest.
The hands and feet of Christ, serving year round, in the places of need.
May the Lord bless each of you with the strength you need today as you serve.
May you, who give so generously of the greatest resource we have….
your TIME and LOVE….
know the whisper of His precious voice telling you today…
Well done, good and faithful servant…
For whatever you have done for the least of these surely you have done for Him <3
How sweet it is to serve others and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. It truly is more blessed to give than to receive. My prayer is that glory be given to God in all the places that people are receiving the gifts we buy and give in the name of Jesus our Savior and King. Lord, please give revelation of your care and concern and love to those who have so little through our gifts of love. Amen.
Amen!!!