A series of giving

Last night at the Christmas Eve service at my church my Pastor spoke about giving. You may be thinking "Oh i know what he said,. He talked about it's better to give then receive sermon. I have heard that before". Well that was not it all, he spoke about how God sent Jesus as a gift to us, a gift that keeps on giving as HE sits at the right hand of God interceding for us. He also spoke about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how we are given spiritual gifts and they are not just for us to have but for us to then give out to others. It was a very inspiring message.
 As my family was driving home I  pondered the message and reflected on our day.

God gave us the awesome privilege of being able to give to a family that HE chose to bless. To tell you the story I have to back up to last Sunday when my husband purchased a Christmas tree for a family that would not have had one if this one was not provided. He has been bringing them a tree for  the past few years. I went with him o deliver it and we had a nice visit with  the mother and her two young children.

On Monday I received an email that a neighbor's friend had some very gently used American Girl dolls to donate and she wanted to know if I knew of anyone in need of them and I said "YES". She and her friend were coming to help me serve at a soup kitchen on Wednesday so I asked her to bring them to me then.  They were in beautiful condition and I was thrilled because I had the little 7 year old girl who danced and sang as she put decorations on her new tree just days before in mind but my dilemma was  I also needed a gift for her 9 year old brother. I asked one of my sons if he had any video games or anything he would be willing to give this Christmas. I was ecstatic when He gave us his Wii system! The controls were broken so we bought new ones and packaged it up. My husband called the mother to tell her we had these gifts if she would like them and when he told her what the gifts were she was overcome. She told him that those were the gifts that the children had wanted but she was unable to get them  and could only provide one small gift each. With gratitude she accepted and  gave thanks to God for his provision and asked that we sign the gifts from Jesus!! "Every good ad perfect gift is from above ,coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights,who does not change like the shifting shadows." (James 1:17 NIV)

It was one of the highlights of the weekend to deliver those gifts from God to these precious children( plus one for mom too) and to be used by HIM in this  series of giving and provision that  demonstrated  HIS amazing love.

"A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great." (Proverbs 18:16 NIV