365 Days of Service

Day 206 - Jan 5

Today was a bit of a struggle. I was tired. I was used to being at home taking it easy, sleeping in, focusing on myself. It was difficult to get up, start the day, respond to tons of email, and at the end of the day, find the energy to serve someone else. On Mondays I almost always make the drive to Mercy Ministry to meet a LifeGroup and help out any way I can. (I promised Rosa a year of Monday nights off - I’m living up to that promise, I hope!)

I was excited to go today because a friend, Holly, had packed a bad full of nice clothes and donated a couple of great winter coats. The generosity of my friends and co-workers never ceases to amaze me and continually challenges me to greater and greater levels of generosity myself. Is there more I could be doing? Is there a skill or talent that I can share with others? I have a few spare minutes, can I bless someone in that time? On and on. Today was no different, of course, as soon as I made the drive and unloaded the clothes to take inside, God energized me to do what I could for the poor of Oklahoma City. When I left I was glad He challenges me to serve!

Here is an article about and a link to a Facebook Group that’s attempting to inspire people to make a difference everyday - I LOVE IT!

http://christianpost.com/article/20090105/pastor-s-story-of-kindness-sparks-idea-for-365-club.htm

If you’ve been reading and wondering how you might fit more service into your day, there will be no shortage of ideas coming out of this Facebook Group. Get involved and God bless your acts of kindness!

This year has been the toughest Christmas I’ve ever experienced. I won’t go into all the details, simply because I don’t think I can voice the spiritual and emotional challenges I’m facing right now. God has been leading me through some revolutionary thinking about Christmas through blog posts and online articles. I’m not sure I’ve landed in any particular place yet, but I have a feeling Christmas in ‘09 is going to look far different from Christmas in ‘08.

Read through these blog posts (Going Giftless Parts 1-5):
http://www.shaungroves.com/shlog/comments/going_giftless_part_1/

And take a look at this article:
http://www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2008/12/gods_bailout_pl_1.html

What do you think?

Day 190 - Dec 20 - Day 205 - Jan 4

Another bulk post - with the holidays and being sick (twice!) I haven’t had the time or energy to post regularly. Sorry. Another observation I made was that it was incredibly difficult for me to find an opportunity to serve every single day. I am getting back on track, though, and will start the year with daily posts.

Before Christmas day, I was diagnosed with a bad ear infection and I came down with a stomach bug on the 23rd. I was able to do several things those days, including cooking for Ryan, his co-workers at the Edmond Campus of LifeChurch.tv for the team Christmas party, serving in the toddler room during experiences at the OKC campus, wrapping gifts for a very special family, baking cookies for our elderly neighbors, delivering Christmas cards and leaving a package on our neighbor’s door Christmas Day. I was also able to spend a day at Mercy Ministry where we fed 144 families for Christmas! It was such a blessing to be able to interact with so many people and to pray and pray and pray for those folks. God was definitely in the house.

Ryan and I recovered and spent a couple of days cleaning and packing for our trip to Nashville, TN to see family. While in Nashville, we spent a ton of time with our family, playing with nieces and nephews, spending time with my Grandpa (his first Christmas with us in years!) and eating great food prepared by my mom. I finished a painting that I’d started for my brother and helped my other brother prepare for a painting he was working on. We went bowling, played games and spent a lot of time catching up with everyone. What a miracle it was for us to be healthy and to be able to relax with our family. God definitely blesses the time we spend together.

When we returned, Ryan and I decided to serve ourselves with a little time spent working on the house. We repainted our living room and cleaned thoroughly, trying to remove all traces of the virus that plagued us! We rewarded ourselves with a late night trip to IHOP for pancakes, and we tipped the waitress $11.00. She turned back to us and said, “I love you, You’re awesome!”. It was money well spent. Sunday I was at a friend’s house working on a mural in their new baby’s nursery. I can’t wait to see how it turns out when I am finished.

And finally - the most rewarding thing I was able to accomplish over the last 2 weeks was to reward one of my good friends and her family with a much-deserved Christmas of gifts and giftcards. I’ve spoken about Rosa a few times before, and I’d promised her kids an awesome Christmas. Several families made this possible by chipping in and shopping for things on the kids’ wish lists. What an honor it was for me to be able to deliver bags of gifts to Rosa to put under the tree Christmas day. I continue to be amazed at the ways God blesses the faithful - and Rosa’s kids are an incredible bunch of young believers that inspire me on a regular basis. God is good!