Today we'll be cooking up a storm. Just a small storm, since our guests are bringing part of the meal too.
My parents have this amazing value for including and welcoming people into our home. It's true at all times of year, but especially true at Thanksgiving. I used to get upset about it, because gathering a bunch of different, sometimes awkward, people into our home on a holiday just seemed to take away from "family only" time. HOW SELFISH. I am now SO grateful to my mom for inspiring me to open my heart more, give a little more, make space for people. Especially those who are alone. What a terrible time of year to be alone.
So this year, when she asked me who we should invite, I started suggesting all the lonely people we know who might not have a place to go. As it turns out, our church has the same heart that my parents do, and most of these folks were already welcomed in someone else's home.
It's something about this American culture that makes us selfish with our holidays instead of generous with them. It convinces us we need to eat more, buy more, accumulate more, want more, MUST HAVE MORE. Ugh.
Ugh in my own heart for the places where this is true. I usually put together a Christmas wish list, excited for the various things I might get that don't fit into our own budget. Then a few weeks later, I usually want to trash the whole list and give all our money away, and all my gift money away, to people who don't have enough. Or anything.
This time of year makes me feel so darn selfish and sick with myself.
Today I'm going to a grocery store laden with two hundred kinds of cereal and a hundred kinds of cookies and ten kinds of bottled water. When there are people starving to death on a few grains of rice and water pulled from a mud hole.
Tomorrow I'm going to stuff my belly until it aches with a delicious menu many people spent hours preparing. I'll be moderating my intake so I don't gain the ten pounds the average American accumulates during the holiday season. When there are people who can make a living from the $20 gift of a basket of chicks.
I've made a wish list including things like an $80 pair of flats or a $60 pair of boots (although the flats are Tom's, so at least some of that money is charitable, providing shoes for someone in need). When there are people who walk miles a day over terrible terrain in just the bare soles of their feet.
And I have to actually work to remind myself that I really DON'T NEED ALL THIS STUFF. I tend to write the word stuff as Stuff. Because it is an entity. An entity that draws us in day after day, sucking us into its greedy talons and poisoning us with its desire. We are surrounded, no, saturated, marinated, in it this time of year especially.
So I try to center myself. Try to spend more time in prayer. Try to set aside funds for outreach, reducing the money in the "me, me, and more ME" bucket, to increase the resources in the "serve, love, die to self" bucket.
I'm really a selfish, disgustingly self-loving, self-serving person. And the only thing in me that has a thread of goodness and graciousness and generosity is the power and spirit of Christ. I want to live more in His thoughts, and less in my own.
I'd like to think perhaps we could give it ALL away, instead of just some of it.
I'd like my kids to be less selfish than I am, to be inspired to open their hands and hearts. To welcome unusual people into their homes at Thanksgiving, and use some of their Christmas funds to buy chicks and cows and water.
I want it to not take so much effort to remember to give away. I want it to be my nature, my default, my first desire and greatest joy. I know it is HIS.
I'll never be perfect, but I'll never stop trying to grow. Lord, help me be a little less selfish. And a little more like You.
Here's some charities that I support this time of year (and throughout the year).
Charity: Water.
Building water wells...this cause is important to me because in some of
the countries where Charity: Water works, one in five children will die
before their fifth birthday, due to disease caused by dirty drinking
water. One in five. Think of five kids you know (perhaps that many are
in your family), and imagine one of them gone before age five. And all
they need to live a little longer is clean water. I raised money to build a $5,000 water well for my thirtieth birthday.
It was one of the things I'm most proud of accomplishing thus far in
life. Charity Water requires the villagers to support the water
project, often by paying a portion of it, or doing much of the manual
labor, and learning to maintain their water point. So we know the
villages these are going into are also invested in the project, to keep
their water source functioning.
Heifer International.
Giving animals, a renewable resource, to families. This cause is
important to me because the animals given to families can reproduce more
animals. And Heifer requires each family to "pass on" the gift, by
donating an offspring of their own animal to another family within a
year or two. It's the gift that keeps on giving. We usually purchase an animal of some kind as part of our Christmas budget.
Samaritan's Purse.
Filling shoe boxes with toys, candy, school supplies, and hygiene
essentials for kids who otherwise don't get Christmas. This cause is
important to me because the children are also given tracts in their own
language talking about Jesus. He is the best Gift of all. It doesn't
cost much at all (about $10 to fill a shoe box and $7 to ship it), and
has a huge impact. I also like knowing there is one particular kid who
gets the particular box I filled. We filled two boxes this year. Our
church was also a collection point for folks in the community to drop
off boxes. We collected over 1,300 boxes from the community, and over
120 boxes from our own church (which I don't even think 120 people GO to
our church, so that was more than one box per person!).
HERS | Blouse thrifted | Tank Old Navy | Shorts Old Navy | Shoes Crocs Malindi | Necklace yard sale | Sweater Target
HIS | Shirt Tonka (love, love the sweet pastel trucks) | Pants Genuine Baby by Oshkosh
