What Did You Do Today?

I have to REPOST this gal's blog, "What A Ride" by (Just in Case) .
She spent her 35th Birthday loving others! 

MONDAY, MAY 17, 2010

My Birthday was AWESOME!!!

My birthday was AWESOME - I promise you that this was theBEST birthday I have ever had!

So, as promised - here is a glimpse at our Random(ish) Acts of Kindness!

1 - We left our mailman a yummy box of girl scout cookies and a note thanking him for bringing us our mail!

2- At the top of our neighborhood sits Fire Station #4 - we have been fortunate enough to never need their services, but I assure you that I sleep better at night knowing how close they are. We took them a plate of home made cookies and muffins with a hand written note from Xander that said "Thank you for helping our community."

3 - About a mile from our house sits an assisted living facility that we drive past daily - we have never been in. During the last week, the kids worked hard painting rainbows on the covers of cards and writing "Have a great day" on the inside. Today, we took those cards in the facility to the desk and asked the director to hand them out to residents who might enjoy them (we had 6 cards). She was super kind to us and took us on a tour of the facility - and allowed us to visit 6 residents in their rooms and hand deliver our cards. I shed my first tears here today - the sight of my children bringing such joy to these amazing people. (oh and I did love the one male we met who said "You two are so beautiful - you definitely take after your beautiful momma" - yeah, he's definitely a hot item in the eldery circuit!)

This was one of our favorites - she just LOVED Xander - she hugged and hugged on him.

4 - Many of you are familiar with the great saga that is known as the Coach's truck. Our fourth stop we took home made muffins and cookies to the mechanics that have not charged us AT ALL for looking at his truck repeatedly and not finding anything wrong. I think they were the hungriest:)

5 - We took two vases of flowers (picked out by Xman) to the hospital. The lead volunteer was generous enough to accompany us to the section of the hospital that she thought would most enjoy our flowers. It turns out that our hospital has a "seniors unit." I shed my second tears of the day here - how sad that these lovely people are living in our hospital - many were unattended in wheelchairs, the rooms were small (hospital size) and had all their belongings in them. One of the ladies was particularly friendly and we were all impressed by how she still crochets dresses for dolls - she herself was once a volunteer, and is now a resident.

6 - While at the hospital, we left home made coloring books and crayons in the waiting areas.

7- We left change on the vending machines for others!

8, 9 and 10 - Our next stop was our church - we made a donation to the food pantry, left books for a family in need, and were excited to leave special notes for our children's pastors.

11 - Muffins and cookies to our librarians - who exclaimed "Wow - someone does love us!" and promptly starting eating:)

12 - Xman and I collected carts from parking spaces at the Walmart and took them all the way into the store.

13 - We stopped at our local toddler park and gave out presents - I will say that here we encountered our first disbeliever in our acts of kindness. For the first time, I had to explain our whole purpose for the day. They were still shouting thank you as we headed back to our car!

14 - One more park stop - the kids hid Easter eggs with prizes in them all over our favorite playground. We left an Easter bucket with a note stating "Have a egg hunt - please enjoy this random act of kindness!"

15, 16 - Stop at the Dollar tree - we made two purchases to give to others this week. The kids favorite was hiding dollars in the kid's toy section. Man, I wish we could have seen the kids that found our dollars!

17, 18, and 19 - Popped into the bookstore. We purchased a book to pass on to someone else this week. The Nana and I both read whole stories and lingered - because that's what my kids love.

I spent 15 minutes in this section with a total stranger - I became his personal shopper. At one point he actually said to me "God sent you to me to help me today and I am so grateful." (I think I am up to the 3rd time I cried?).........I got to share with him that I had prayed that just this morning that God would lead me to people who need me!

20, 21 and 22 - We treated the Nana to lunch - and she got eat somewhere she had never been before!

I gave this darling princess my birthday ice cream treat - to eat all by herself!

And, we left a gift for our waitress

23, 24, and 25 - We mailed some treats to surprise friends and family, as well as a hand written note

26 - We left diapers and wipes on a changing table in a public bathroom.

27 - We ran an errand for a family member who was busy at work

28 - We picked up trash everywhere we went (even the trash our waitress stepped over at lunch!)

29 - We smiled at EVERYONE we saw today, we said hello to everyone, and generously passed out compliments

30 - The kids passed out a pack of silly bandz today. They gave them to kids in the hospital, kids in stores, kids at the park. This was one of my favorites - We got our first silly bandz because someone was randomly generous to us - came across a restaraunt to our table and said "I don't know if you guys have these here but these are really popular where I'm from - they are FUN" and gave each of the kids one. We had never seen them before at that time!

31 - I was a friendly driver (at least I think I was - I tried!). I smiled as people took up two lanes and drove toward our car - I let others go ahead of us as we approached red lights.


32, 33 - Technically 32 and 33 didn't get delivered today - the hours of both establishments didn't fit in with our schedule - but we will finish them up this week. We have donations to two local charities that have special meanings to friends of ours. Bags are loaded in the car and WILL get delivered!

34 - I worked. I know - working only barely acts as an act of kindness. But, I NEVER work on my birthday. EVER. Even when I taught full time, I always took the day off. I had two students who both have tests/exams tomorrow - and they are important to me. Their needs are important to me. So, today I tutored two of my teens!

35 - I let a very impatient lady behind me in line at Walmart this evening get in front of me. Even though she used three coupons in the self checkout lane, and couldn't find her credit card. I smiled at her. I offered to hold her watermelon while she looked!

And that my friends  is how I spent my amazing 35th birthday.

Definitely a new tradition!

I can't tell  you how amazing it is to see the best of your children as your gift. To see the joy that my children (and me) can bring other people is a GIFT. A gift that I no longer take for granted. A gift that is a teachable moment for me - because I now will always remember the look on those strangers faces and the looks on my kids faces, and know that CHARACTER EDUCATION is the most important education. My kids can change the world around us.

With one random act of kindness at a time!

Drop your nets and follow Me.

Welcome to  L.O.V.E. Nation Ministries' 1st blog!
I am so excited to be writing now...... For Such A Time As This!

The prayer of Jabez comes to mind:
"Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain." So God granted him what he requested.         1 Chronicles 4:10

10 years ago, we moved our children from a very small farming town to a suburb of L.A. Every person we knew told us we were making a mistake, but we felt God calling us. I had seen God work in my life and knew He was real. I did not, however, know who God was. Who God is. Our oldest son, Daniel, did not want to move with us and we were completely broken-hearted. Daniel was a senior in high school and loved his church and friends. I decided to take him to visit a church in our new city, hoping he would want to move here. I snuck his name & phone # into the offering plate and wrote "I would love to volunteer in the Tech-Dept." They called the next day. It worked. He loved it. What I didn't realize at the time was that God was using Daniel to bring me into a relationship with Him too. It worked. I loved it. All 4 of our kids + another friend that moved with us, Scotty, were all soon hired on staff. 

Our entire family fell in love with our new church home, I finally trusted Jesus and Brian finally learned to apply the Word to his life and marriage! God was working great and mighty things in all of our lives! 

Daniel found a love for audio, got his engineering license, became Tech-Director of this mega-church, left to pursue his dreams of live sound and tour management. He has traveled the world, working with Christian artists.

Noah taught himself graphics and soon became the church's Graphic Designer. He was then hired to work for a company where he learned even more. Not long after he moved to San Francisco to pursue even bigger dreams, he was sought after by a large software company and was hired as their Creative Director. 

Scotty moved from the Central Valley with us and went to Audio Engineering School with Daniel. He too was hired by the church and eventually took Daniel's position as Tech-Director. He married Beka, who is now on staff as a teacher at the church's school.

Allye found a passion for kids working in the Children's Ministry. She took that love to another level as a missionary traveling to Turkey, the Philippines, New Orleans, and several trips to Mexico. She was also on staff in the cafe. 

Logan spent many years working in the Children's Ministry, as well. He was blessed to be mentored in Photography by Pam, the Pastor's wife. His passion for photography continued to grow and today, at only 19 years old, he has his own successful business shooting both Fashion and Weddings. 

Brian and I grew closer to God and to each other. We began counseling crisis and struggling marriages. We became leaders in the Decision Room, worked with young mothers, and mentored individual men and women. Brian became an Elder and a member of the Finance Committee. 

This church was Holy ground, where God performed miracles in our lives! We had all come from poverty stricken backgrounds and lived through stories that ruin most people's lives. The world told us we were worthless and would never make anything of ourselves. They were right. We would never amount to anything on our own... unless we allowed God into our lives and chose to put our trust in Him. God could make us brand new creations and weave beauty into our lives! And He did! We loved our church and all God had done for our family there!

The closer we walked with God, the more He revealed Himself to us. The more He revealed Himself to us, the hungrier we became to follow His Spirit. Over the past 2 years, God has been leading us in a new direction. A couple of months ago, we heard His voice louder than ever. "Get out of your boat. Drop your nets and come with Me." We followed Him out of the mega-church and into the Book of Acts. We heard Him telling us to be faithful with a few things. To be more effective in less areas. We heard Him loud and clear when He told us to: Love Him with all our heart, soul and mind and to Love others. We heard Him loud and clear when He told us to go and make disciples. We heard Him loud and clear when He told us to visit orphans & widows. We heard Him loud and clear when He told us to care for the least of these and we heard Him loud and clear when He told us to remain unstained by the world. These are not hard. These are not burdensome. These are not too much to do. These are His commandments. This is what He has told all of us to do.
"If you love Me, you will obey what I command." John 14:15 
We filed for a Non-Profit and extended our home ministry into a home church focused on local and global missions.

The freedom that comes when you let the Holy Spirit lead you every step of the way is truly indescribable. So, here we are... On the wings of a dove... Writing our first blog. We hope you will join us on our adventures with God.