We gave up Christmas as the world knows it 5-6 years ago. When we gave it up it was because of greedy attitudes and entitlement mindsets of 3 young children that we had adopted. Add the fact that the "season" came with lots of triggers for theses same children and it was enough to cancel Christmas. I thought for one year. God had already been working on my heart about where Christmas came from. Add the fact I detest the $$$ involved in buying a tree, and the fact that after the fun that tree has to come down and either be packed away if it is fake, or trashed if it is real has never been my favorite part of Christmas. We even did the plan the tree after Christmas tree one year. I think it died. Bottom line is I have never been overly into Christmas as most people think of Christmas. I wanted more Christ in Christmas and less stress and worry and materialism. I just didn't know how to achieve that.
The year I canceled Christmas it was like scales fell off my eyes. I discovered how freeing it is to not "have to" buy for this one and that one and struggle with will they like it and will it fit and do we have the money. I could just go on with life. It was peaceful. We weren't stressed.
I can't remember if it was the first year or the second year that we adopted the angel tree. We would choose a child from there and bless them for Christmas. Kids loved it! They would start looking before Thanksgiving for the trees at Wal-mart. Last year we did the angel tree and also our church made food baskets for several families and bought toys for their kids.
This year we again felt that was the way we were to go. Instead of doing the angle tree we wanted to do more in an area that doesn't see many blessings. We came up with one of the local towns in our area that is very poor. It is a town that many would slip through the cracks because there aren't many services are even choices in groceries without driving 30 miles. We prayed and went seeing who as a church to bless. We came up with the same names from 2 directions.
We shopped, we chose gifts, we prayed over gifts as we talked about what we were doing. The excitement level here has been growing all week as we planned to surprise these families today. The excitement has been like Christmas, only not for them, but in giving.
Today we organized loads of food, and gifts for these families. Not only did our small church group tithe into this, but others joined us so the amount of food we had was truly from God. Gifts enough for children. Bibles for all.
We arrived at our blessing point and that is when we were blessed. Their children were excited. Kids had been told they weren't having much or anything for Christmas. The parents were receptive and thankful. My deepest blessing came from the young mom our family delivered too. She was tearing up and I just hugged her. It blessed me! I spoke a blessing over her and then told her I want to be her friend.
I pray that this sows seeds with all our children how to celebrate this or any other season. They have all expressed how good it made them feel inside to do this. They repainted some of their wood crafts they have made for the children. This on top of the gifts that were bought. These are items that are precious to my kids. They gave as and act of love. More blessings for me.
Heart is singing tonight as we soak in the blessings of giving. There is no feeling like that of giving! It is a high that can't be matched. I am so thankful that God has allowed us to be blessed today. I pray that each gift we gave will draw those we gave to closer to God. That they will remember Him in those gifts, not us. I pray that those we reached out to will feel loved. I pray that they feel our heart in blessing them. I am thankful that we were given this opportunity!
The year I canceled Christmas it was like scales fell off my eyes. I discovered how freeing it is to not "have to" buy for this one and that one and struggle with will they like it and will it fit and do we have the money. I could just go on with life. It was peaceful. We weren't stressed.
I can't remember if it was the first year or the second year that we adopted the angel tree. We would choose a child from there and bless them for Christmas. Kids loved it! They would start looking before Thanksgiving for the trees at Wal-mart. Last year we did the angel tree and also our church made food baskets for several families and bought toys for their kids.
This year we again felt that was the way we were to go. Instead of doing the angle tree we wanted to do more in an area that doesn't see many blessings. We came up with one of the local towns in our area that is very poor. It is a town that many would slip through the cracks because there aren't many services are even choices in groceries without driving 30 miles. We prayed and went seeing who as a church to bless. We came up with the same names from 2 directions.
We shopped, we chose gifts, we prayed over gifts as we talked about what we were doing. The excitement level here has been growing all week as we planned to surprise these families today. The excitement has been like Christmas, only not for them, but in giving.
Today we organized loads of food, and gifts for these families. Not only did our small church group tithe into this, but others joined us so the amount of food we had was truly from God. Gifts enough for children. Bibles for all.
We arrived at our blessing point and that is when we were blessed. Their children were excited. Kids had been told they weren't having much or anything for Christmas. The parents were receptive and thankful. My deepest blessing came from the young mom our family delivered too. She was tearing up and I just hugged her. It blessed me! I spoke a blessing over her and then told her I want to be her friend.
I pray that this sows seeds with all our children how to celebrate this or any other season. They have all expressed how good it made them feel inside to do this. They repainted some of their wood crafts they have made for the children. This on top of the gifts that were bought. These are items that are precious to my kids. They gave as and act of love. More blessings for me.
Heart is singing tonight as we soak in the blessings of giving. There is no feeling like that of giving! It is a high that can't be matched. I am so thankful that God has allowed us to be blessed today. I pray that each gift we gave will draw those we gave to closer to God. That they will remember Him in those gifts, not us. I pray that those we reached out to will feel loved. I pray that they feel our heart in blessing them. I am thankful that we were given this opportunity!
2 comments:
Thank YOU God!!!! Thank You Nola for posting this. We stopped "doing" Christmas about 3 years ago...except we would have our own gift exchange around March after income tax when it was easier on me financially. However, I began to feel like I don't even want to do that and I wanted to do more but had no idea how to do it or what to do. I hope you don't mind if my family "steals" the idea. Of course it will start out on a smaller scale, but I pray it grows beyond our wildest dreams and ideas. I want to bless someone else, not keep creating more materialistic, greedy, self centered people. I want my children to think of others beyond family and friends! Hope that didn't sound harsh. I didn't mean it in that way. We love our family and friends, but what about those outside our sphere.... Make sense?
Anyway, thanks again and Merry CHRISTmas!!!!!
Steal away Tasha! Maybe this idea can go viral across the internet and God will use us to bless beyond what we can imagin.
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