12-11-09
am i bright enough to shine in your spaces?
Oh, Christmas.
Over 5 years ago, something began to stir in my heart – This has to change.
I was left after a holiday season feeling empty and depressed and tired…just tired.
It wasn’t necessarily a one time revelation for me that Christmas needed to be something different than commercialism and materialism and busyness. Instead, it was a slow realization that I can only truly appreciate the birth of my Savior when I am giving more than I receive.
Giving more than I receive means something more than giving other people more expensive gifts than they got you, or giving people gifts when they got you nothing. It even means more throwing money in a bucket. I heard Donald Miller speak once and what he said resonated:
there is a difference between raising awareness [and money] & actually doing the work. Raising awareness and money is kindness without the messiness of humanity.
Not that raising money and awareness are bad – they are definitely great things and have their place in social justice. But they’re easy. And I want to do more….I want to see the messiness of humanity.
Four of my past five Christmases (is that even the plural? Christmi?) have been spent out of the country. If you want to keep the purpose of celebrating Christmas at the forefront of your mind, I highly recommend doing something like this. You don’t even have to leave the country – trust me, there are families in your city who don’t have toothbrushes.
I guess the purpose of this blog post, really, is two-fold:
1. It can be different. YOU can change things. You can’t save everyone, but you can help one person.
2. God has surrounded me with some freaking amazing people. People who want to change the world. People whose hearts break for orphans and widows, for those living in poverty, for those without basic needs. For example:
+ My friends from the Gallery Church are in Vietnam to share the gospel through the story of Christmas. My good friend and ex-roommate Rachel is going with (her first trip overseas!), and you can follow that story here.
+ My good friend and ex-roommate Susan is going to Moldova to hang out with and love on some orphans….Help her provide shoes for some orphans!
+ My sister (who would not like it if she knew I was writing about this, but I wanted to share how awesome I think she is) works at a middle school and there is one kid who has nothing. So she buys him clothes, school supplies, and brings him snacks every day. Somehow she got a copy of his Christmas list and he wanted a toothbrush and toothpaste. He’s in the 6th grade. He had to put toothbrush and toothpaste on his Christmas list. Of course she went ahead and bought it for him and gave it to him already, but he didn’t have a toothbrush and toothpaste (which brings me to tears every time I think about it).
+ My friends and I have recently become involved in a ministry called Front Porch Ministry. We adopted a family through their Family-to-Family program. They have the families in their area (inner city Nashville) sign up for the program by agreeing to volunteer for other events within the ministry. Then they pair the family with another family, a small group, a Sunday school class, etc. who wants to provide Christmas for them.
I LOVE the way they do it – first of all, they show the inner city family that nothing is free and we are not a government program…someone is paying for their gifts. And then they have to volunteer or serve in some way in order to receive the gifts for their children. Second, we have to become involved with the family in some way. We don’t just give money to the single mother to go shopping for her kids – we meet with her, get to know her, and take her shopping to pick out the gifts. This is good for everyone involved because it allows us to put names with faces and learn from each other.
+ Also, I love this site. Great idea!
(title song: from ‘all the right moves’ by onerepublic)
You inspire me.
12-11-09 » 8:16 pm »
Wow! What your sister does brings me to tears. She has such a loving heart. We have adopted two children at work and it has been a joy for me to work on this project. Everyone has been so kind with donations that we have almost met their wish list. Although we will never meet these children, I know that their Christmas will be spectacular! Thanks for the great post!
12-13-09 » 1:19 pm »