Freely Give

Not sure exactly how to begin this post. It is 1:00 a.m. and I’m awake. It’s so very interesting when I know the Lord is nudging me to write. Sometimes,  I’m in the middle of something and I know that the feeling won’t go away until I stop and write. Then again, in the middle of the night when I have these thoughts that I know will become a story and they just won’t allow me to sleep until I get up and go write. This is one of those times.

All of us these last 40 days or so, are doing some soul searching. We have been given the task of accepting some new difficulties that we have not had before. There seems to be so many people who are asking lots of questions about God. They have lost their joy, possibly their jobs, or people who they love, due to the virus. What people depended on has maybe been stripped from them, leaving them wondering about a lot of things. Were we depending on activities that are not there right now? Was it our jobs that gave us security, or hope?  Was being able to go sit in a church building what brought us peace that we all long for? Is God present during these difficult times? Does He truly care what is going on in my life and if so, why does He allow things like this to happen? So many questions and “inquiring minds want to know” all the answers. Well, I don’t have all the answers, but this I do know. God is here and He loves you and me.. We hear folks say, “well, I don’t like religion” or “oh, I believe there is something bigger out there” or even “why do I need God, I’m in control of my life”

God is real and He wants a personal relationship with you.  When this all began, we, as older adults began to hear about all the things we could not do, or should not be doing. It was then that I began to think, “what can I do then to serve someone”. And that is where this story begins.

On FB I begin to read all the comments from some of the moms who had school age children and how frustrated they were at trying to do homeschooling and cook 3 meals a day and everything that goes along with this pandemic. The thought that maybe I could cook and take some meals to some of these moms would not leave me. When I mentioned this to our Sunday School class women, some of them got on board and said they would love to take a meal a week to a young mom, some of who were still trying to work while they had kids at home and still trying to home school.  So we all received names that we could connect with and take them a meal each week. We were so excited to be able to do this.

Then last week, a couple of young moms had emailed or texted me and began asking for some recipes that would be easy to make. One of the young moms, who has kids at home and is, like so many of you, home schooling, different age children, had ask me if I still sold the frozen casseroles I use to sell.  I knew that if I were one of those moms who was trying to cook 21 meals every week, plus home school children and keep up with daily chores of running the house, I would be so grateful to have some help with cooking. So yes, I would be glad to make her some casseroles for her to buy.  We agreed about how many she wanted and I began to plan what casseroles I would make for her. That night when trying to sleep, I just felt once again, this stirring in my heart. I sat up and thought about what I had said to her, that I would “sell” her the casseroles. That really bothered me for some reason. I began to pray and ask the Lord should I just give her the casseroles, instead of having her pay? “Lord, You know that we are already taking some meals to others right now and this would just be more food that I (yes, I still argue with Him sometimes when I don’t want extra responsibilities) would need to worry about getting and making more grocery orders and trying to find meat (which I had not been able to get in the last two grocery orders). Well, knowing the Lord would answer my questions in His timing, I finally fell back asleep. The following morning, I shared all my thoughts (can’t you just see Randy’s eyes rolling when I begin my stories of what has kept me up at night?) with Randy at breakfast and when I relayed my concerns about adding another person to our “meal delivery”,  and what if, once again, I was not able to get the meat that I had ordered? He looked at me and said, why don’t you just cook for her and give them the food instead of selling it to her? Well, Ms. Pious, as I like to call myself, told him that I had been up during the night and prayed and ask the Lord to tell me if that’s what He wanted me to do. (why don’t we as wives know that sometimes, the Lord speaks through our precious husbands and why don’t we just accept what they say to us?) But before Randy got up to go to his office (which is our 2nd bedroom right now), we had our morning devotion. As I picked up the book and began to read, I began to weep. The more I read, the more my heart just began to leap with joy. How does God do what He does? Because of time, I won’t quote the entire devotion, but the subject was about the different bodies of water in Israel. There is the Sea of Galilee and the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee has an inlet and an outlet and the Dead Sea is just that, Dead, only an inlet. Nothing lives in the Dead Sea. The  devotion was this: (Taken from the Passion Code by O.S. Hawkins)

“So  it is with the vibrant believer who not only receives God’s fullness but also gives it away– and then, like the Sea of Galilee, is constantly being refilled with the Spirit. Let this remind you of these two very different bodies of water and of God’s desire for you to be like the Sea of Galilee, receiving His fullness and giving it away.”

And yes, the scripture of the day was Matthew 10:8 “Freely you have received, freely give.”

Well, you don’t have to tell me twice (ok, maybe He does with me) but I knew then that I was suppose to cook for this precious family a meal each week and “give it away”. And isn’t it just like the Lord, all the meat I had ordered this time, was in the order when I went to pick it up.

This story is not being written to tell you about me cooking for someone, but to show that the Lord does speak to us individually and He does want a personal relationship with us. He is not an absent God, nor does he expect us to live here without His love, His guidance or His protection. He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. He lives, so we can face tomorrow.  He wants to be our strength, our hope, our all.

“On Christ the solid rock I stand, all other ground is sinking sand, all other ground is sinking sand.”

John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him, should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

That is our promise from God, our God, who loves each of us personally!