Wednesday, March 14, 2012

A Family Challenge

Week after week we are challenged at church to live our lives more fully to bring God glory but throughout this Hole in our Gospel series we were rocked by how little we care. We have been in the process of our adoption for two years. We already said Yes to God in this area but I know God wants more.
Winter Break was three weeks ago and Scott was taking Jacob to Utah with some dads and sons so Blaire and I wanted to do a Mother/Daughter trip. We decided on San Francisco and tack on a visit with a lifelong friend of mine. Scott sat us down around the kitchen table to have a family meeting before we left. He handed each of us some money and said we can spend it however we wanted except 10% had to go to someone in need. I have to tell you that this totally put a new spin on vacation. It wasn't just for ourselves but we prayed to be open-handed with our money and looked for a need.
We found the airport wasn't full of people in need. Mostly business men who were too into their cell phones. On the plane we didn't sit by anyone who looked needy. (mind you it's hard to talk to someone when you have earphones in your ears most of the trip watching a movie on the ipad). Oops! But once downtown and walking around the streets of San Francisco we definitely saw people sleeping outside and carrying their possessions on their backs. Blaire decided we should buy them some food...and decided to give half her money! I don't know if she saw the need was so great but I couldn't complain. We went to Subway and bought 10 subs and started our mission to hand them out. Our first stop was an elderly lady that we soon found out was named Barb and when Blaire handed her a sandwich her face lit up. We decided to chat with her and ask her where she was from and where she would spend the night. Blaire handed her some money as well. It was great to see her be so giving. We stopped at another woman named, Dawn,who maybe was a little younger than me. She was crouched down on the street corner where everyone gathers at the street light. I bent down to chat with her and she couldn't really look me in the eyes. When she received the sandwich she immediately started to feed her two dogs. They are the reason she can't sleep in a shelter at night but they were her 'babies'. I gave her some money and told her I hoped she would keep warm that night. The smiles were what Blaire noticed that night. We continued down the street with our sandwiches and they were all very appreciative. I remember these individuals like it was yesterday. What makes them different from me? They all have a story, they all matter! Why can't I go down to my very own city and get involved with people more often? Life gets in the way? Why is that?
I know this challenge brought me back to when I was young and headed down to Toronto to do projects like that. Except I don't want this to be 'a project'. It must be apart of my everyday life. Even more importantly I need to begin each day asking who will God place before me today? I'll leave you with the words of a great Brandon Heath Song
Give Me Your Eyes

Give me Your eyes for just one second
Give me Your eyes so I can see
Everything that I keep missing
Give me Your love for humanity

Give me Your arms for the broken hearted
The ones that are far beyond my reach?
Give me Your heart for the one's forgotten
Give me Your eyes so I can see

2 comments:

  1. What an awesome experience you and Blaire shared in San Francisco! She expressed such inspiring open-heartedness and open-handedness! I need to live that way. Thanks for sharing.

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    1. That was from Vel. Not sure why it lists me as a weird number.

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