GIVING AWAY LOVE
I'm heading to northern Iowa today to talk to a womens group. Several churches coming together to share together, and I get to speak and share a little worship.
When I was trying to figure out what to share to this group of primarily "older" women what God's Spirit whispered to me was that I needed to teach about how we make a difference--young & old alike. The cool thing is that I got to see that first hand last weekend when we celebrated the birthday of my dear friend and a neighbor we lived next door to for 17 years. Marcie was an amazing neighbor and still is. Every year she plants this unbelievable garden. Now mind you, she lives by herself; she is 80 years old (although she doesn't like you to know that); and she's been planting a garden for years. Oh and yes, I forgot to mention that she just quit working as a full-time legal secretary after 50 years! The garden planting happened even while she was working full-time.
All of us who lived near to her reaped the harvest of her beautiful produce by receiving jars of canned goods: beets, beans, tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, pickles and more. She gave it away - she always had an abundance and always shared it so willingly with all of us as well as other friends and family. She gave away her love by sharing her garden produce with us. She made a difference in my life and in the life of our family all those years we lived by her. She was more than a neighbor!
So as I was finalizing my talk I thought "you know, why is it that people want to make a difference? What is it that gives Christ followers that desire?" And I came to the conclusion that it's what Marcie does. She gives away LOVE through her garden produce.
And isn't that what Christ did for us? He gave away his love to us! I love that. John 15:13 says "greater love hath no man than he who would lay down his life for his friends." Giving it away.
I want to be like Marcie. Unfortunately, I am not a huge gardener so I'll never be able to give away the kind of produce that she does. But I can give away love - and I can give it away freely out of gratefulness for what Christ did for me. I pray I can give away my love today by sharing with these ladies.
We got to celebrate my mom's 75th birthday this past weekend. We laughed as families do when you start reminiscing, and we enjoyed time together that is much too rare given we don't live in the same town. My sister-in-law Karla suggested we start doing "Christmas in September" so that we can have a good crew here and not stress everyone out so much in December. We're all pretty excited about it, and it just took one brave soul to suggest it. 
