Gifts Fit for the King

Fresh Manna
by Pastor Tim Burt

Today’s Fresh Manna is written by our good friend Julie Larson. It is a special story! Enjoy and be blessed!

On Tuesday, I got to go to a baby shower for Jesus—with 200 other women. What a blessing!

A large part of my job at church is to help our Small Groups Pastor, Renee Burt, with anything she needs, especially as it relates to the two women’s groups that she leads. One of them is a Bible study group of about 200 women (for wives and moms of all ages), called HomeMakers, who meet at church every Tuesday morning from September to April. (This beautiful group of women is a huge part of my life, and has been for 10+ years, so I’m sure you’ll hear more about it/them in future posts.)

On Tuesday, we had our Christmas party, and met for the last time until after the new year. Our party theme was all in the spirit of giving, and based on the Christmas song, Little Drummer Boy. It was pretty much a 21st century baby shower for Jesus. We called it, “Gifts Fit for the King!”

If you’ve ever listened to the lyrics of the little drummer boy song (besides the pa-rum-pa-pum-pum part), it’s such a sweet song of a little drummer boy talking about how he, like baby Jesus, is just a poor boy too… and even though he has no gifts to bring, he honored Jesus by giving what he had and offering up his talents, playing his best for Jesus on his drum.

Because our party was a “baby shower,” all of us HomeMakers brought new, unwrapped gifts to donate to a couple of local organizations in Minneapolis that help women and children. One of them is the Robbinsdale Women’s Center, a crisis pregnancy center, who’ve helped over 17,000 women and families since 1992. The other is called The Healing House, a drug treatment center, where women live for 12-18 months. It’s the only one of its kind in Minnesota, and one of the things that makes the Healing House unique is that the women’s children can live with them there during their treatment.This photo doesn’t even do justice to what generous gifts we saw before us on those two 8-foot tables and piled on the floor. There were thousands and thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing, toys, toiletries, and things that were donated to help these women and their children. My eyes welled up several times throughout the day, just completely overwhelmed at the hearts of our HomeMakers, so full of love and generosity. These women jumped at the opportunity to help, and went beyond even what we thought might come in to be donated. Even in an economy that is affecting so many of us, people so generously gave. It is overwhelming to witness and be a part of.

Sometimes we can think we have so many problems or have so little ourselves, but what happens when we take our eyes off our own need and reach out to help someone else? Well, a lot happens, but one thing is that we gain a deeper understanding of the love and compassion of Jesus. Loving and giving changes us on the inside, ultimately affecting how we relate to the natural world we live in.

Renee and I get the privilege of delivering the donated items to the organizations, on behalf of all the HomeMakers. The greatest gift anyone can ever receive on this earth is LOVE, so it’s our prayer that everyone who is touched by these gifts feels the deep, deep love of Jesus… and knows in their hearts that He loves them and hasn’t forgotten about them—at Christmas time and throughout the whole year.

Luke 7:13 ~ When the Lord saw her, His heart overflowed with compassion.

Ephesians 4:32 ~ And become useful and helpful and kind to one another, tenderhearted (compassionate, understanding, loving-hearted), forgiving one another [readily and freely], as God in Christ forgave you.

Enjoy more of Julie’s writing at:First Draft by Julie Larson

In His Love,
Pastor Tim Burt