Little blessings

Okay, I really am so blessed with everything God has given me (read previous post). But I am also so lucky to be surrounded by people, whether a casual acquaintance or close friend, who care so much about othes.

Example: My NJHS kids went to an innercity head start preschool yesterday to help out, spend time with the kids, and give them some presents. Remember, these are eighth graders giving up their Christmas break to help out others. You never hear about the good stuff like this on the news. It was awesome to see my students playing with the toddlers. Then, to top it off, one of my former students organized a huge gift drive for these innercity kids. She got them their "wish list" presents with her own dough, wrapped them all and made them cards. All for kids she'll never see again, just because she knows they don't have much and had fun doing it last year when she was a member of this club. These kids faces were GLOWING when they opened up these gifts. There was so much excited shouting when they announced, "Look, teacher. It's my favorite" or "It's just what I always wanted." Priceless. It was so wonderful and really emphasized the true meaning of Christmas.

Example: Not to make his face get red or anything when he reads this, but Jon truly has such an amazing heart to give back to others. He really is passionate about the less fortunate and he loves helping them, whether it's giving money to a homeless guy on the street, trying to pass out water to the homeless when it's 110 out, or dropping in all the money in his wallet to the bell ringers in front of the stores. It definitely humbles me and makes me realize how much better I can be about giving to those less fortunate.

Afterall, Jesus talks about this countless times in the Bible. I was just reading in Mark yesterday about how a man kept all the commandments and wanted to know if that was enough to get into heaven. Jesus said, "Sell everything you have and give it to the poor." The Bible says the man went away very sad because he had so much. This is a hard commandment for me to keep, yet knowing how much God gave up for me, the death of his only Son, makes me ponder how little of a sacrifice it would be for me to give up just some of what I have been blessed with.

May we all be touched by the Spirit to do our part this season!