When
Brantley was a little girl, Pete and I wanted to deliberately help her develop
a giving heart so we were always trying to brainstorm ways to teach her to
serve and give to others. We often spent time and did things with and for our
family members but we wanted her to learn to reach outside of our family and
think of others.
I
believe God gave us the idea of our “just because we
love you” people! We had her write down names of special people in our
lives in a notebook. Some of them were church friends, some were neighborhood
friends, some were teachers, some were our work friends that she knew, too…friends
from all walks of our lives. Every month, we let her choose one name from that
list and, as a family, we would decide what we could do for that person. Sometimes we baked cookies for them,
sometimes we bought a beautiful plant, sometimes we did something special to
help them. She would create a card for them to go along with our gift. It was
always a lot of fun for Pete, Brantley and me to decide who was our “just because we love you” person each month!
When
I started working with young moms, I shared that idea with them and some of them took the idea and
came up with their own list of people to bless as a family. Through the years, I
have shared this idea with many others especially with some of my peers who are
mentoring young women, too. One of these special friends and her group of young
women came over last night and surprised me as their “just
because we love you” person! They brought supper so we could enjoy the
fellowship time and then surprised me with many gifts “based” on the 12 days of
Christmas! It was such a sweet “hug” from God! They brought their love and
shared it with me last night. They truly blessed me. I will cherish those hugs and that love as I go
on through this Christmas season and into next year. It was so precious to be
the recipient of a “just because we love you” surprise!
Love the Lord your God with
all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your
strength. The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself. There
is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31
This post reminds me of somethung my roommate in college, Lynn, and I did. We called it The Krislynn Project. We set up a jar of tasks we would pick from for the week as our goal. Tasks included: Missionary Week: 1. Pray daily 2. Write to them 3. Fast three meals while praying for different missionaries each meal; Encouragement Week: Encourage 3 students on campus this week through a note or a letter; Elderly: Be nice to the Elderly Week. Do three visible projects. Memorize Scripture Week: Memorize 10 verses this week; and many more crazy ideas we came up with. Then we had a CONSEQUENCE jar if we didn't meet the weekly goal! It included things like do the other person's laundry for the week, clean out the fridge or microwave, Draw Two, etc, in addition to putting a dollar in the missions jar.
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