A Resurrection Love Basket

My littlest one was home sick this week, so we took time to do lots of snuggling and to create.

It’s our yearly tradition to make a resurrection basket at Easter time.  Small potted plants placed in a basket are surrounded by symbols to remind us of Jesus and His love.  His sacrificial love.  His resurrection love.

A purple ribbon and a nail.

A stone. 

The resurrection basket sits on our counter in the kitchen. The flowers bloomed today. 

A cross.

A cloth and thorns.

Life and beauty. 

This basket and it's symbols have me thinking.

Do I live His sacrificial love? Do I live His resurrection love?

Do I lay down my wants and seek what God wants?

Do I bring life out of dark places with my words and actions?

Do I bring hope in to the lives of those who are near to completely hopeless?

Do I live less of me and more of Jesus?

Do I extend grace rather than hold it tight in my hard heart?

Do I lay down my life for someone else in need, when He calls?

Do I speak words of truth that spring living from the ground or do I condemn with my looks and with my words?

Do I love much or do I love little?

Do I let His light shine through me or do I board up the windows and hide in the darkness of my own fear and shame?

Do I seek His ways or do I go my own way?

I think I need to pray. I need help. Maybe you do, too.

Lord, help me to remember You every day.  Help to look at the life around me and think of the life that you gave me. Help me to be sensitive to your Spirit to live Your sacrificial love as I love You and love others for You.  Help me to live out Your resurrection love as I hope in You everyday and bring Your hope and life to the ones You love.  Remind me of what You’ve done for me, so that I can do it for others. Amen

Season 3: Change 4 Change 4 Jesus -- A Tradition

Feet run up and down, here and there. Hands search. Hearts yearn.

A tradition for our family, three seasons running, we aim to gather the random change around the house, and the change that we’ve been collecting in a old glass milk bottle. 

The children (now getting older and wiser) made record time in digging through every pocket, swim bag, piggy bank, car seat and the bottom of my purse.  Now that we’ve done it a few years, there are not as many surprises, but we are still astonished at what we find. (Click here for Season 1 and here for Season 2).

$ 88.12 is the total this year.

Change 4 Change 4 Jesus … for the children, this year – for the children at the Villages of Hope Orphanage, Zambia, Africa.

Our hearts are definitely connected here, after spending 2 weeks with them this past August.

Take Nelson, for instance.  This is a letter we received from him this past month.

Nelson with my middle son during our visit.

Dear Aunty Andrea and Uncle Todd and family:

I have loved being with you at the Village of Hope. I thank God that you brought me to a nice place where there is good health and good education.  I am looking forward to see you again in Zambia.  I thank you for the letters that were so wonderful to me.  I am missing your voices and smiles that you gave unto me.  I am praying that you come back in Zambia. I am praying that one day I will come to America to study my cause of Doctor.  I am praying that God will make a way for me to see you in the future.  Remember that I love you. I will never forget you in my life.  God bless you.  Always in my mind.

Truly, God is at work! There are more kids like Nelson, trusting the Lord to provide, they openly, willingly, place their whole lives in His hands. I have a lot to learn from them.

Join us in our family tradition and gather and give up your change. It's not the only way we'll give, but it's one way that we're trying to do that adds to our Christmas traditions!

 We all know that there are many needs, near and far. Pray about whom the Lord may be asking you to help – a neighbor, a church member in need, an organization or a friend.  

And as you pray, would you please also consider giving it to the kids at the Villages of Hope? You can learn more about them at www.akcli.blogspot.com  and how you can donate your change 4 Change 4 Jesus at www.akcli.org .

Merry Christmas!

(P.S. -- if you join in on the fun, we'd love to hear your story!)

A Resurrection Tradition

My two youngest daughters and I created our family tradition of the Resurrection Basket this weekend.  We had a lot of fun designing our own versions. We made one for our home and they each made one for their teachers.

I broke away from the “basket” version and decided to use my grandmother’s old soup terrine.  Instead of using flowers like I did last year (click here for last years post and picture), I arranged little house plants in the container and surrounded them with moss.  I inserted the usual – a cross, the nail, the purple ribbon, the little piece of towel, a twig of thorns from a rose bush and a stone. 

It is special for me to use something old and meaningful and this year I am calling it the “Resurrection Garden.”

The girls picked out cute Easter baskets from a local hobby store. At half-off, they were a deal!  They chose small flowering plants, and worked hard at creating their own rendition of the Resurrection Basket, including the handcrafting of their own wooden cross by tying two sticks together, gathered from our yard.

It’s a fun tradition for our family and it gets us talking and thinking about the real meaning of Easter. 

What Easter traditions does your family do?

A $79.91 Surprise!

It’s a mystery, indeed!  A surprise delivery on our door step!

A few days ago, one of the children noticed a vase sitting on our front porch.  It was filled with change – pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Attached to the neck of the vase was a card in an envelope. The envelope read, “To the precious servant children.” The card inside read,  "Change 4 Change 4 Jesus." The note was not signed.  There was no indication of who was responsible for this surprise.  How special and how fun!

Resting on top of the mound of money was a beautiful red ornament with the even more beautiful word “Jesus” written across it, and James 1:17 inscribed below.  On the back, the verse read, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the Heavenly lights … ”

Who would have left this?  Like a rag tag band of Sherlock Holmes “wanna-bes”, we are trying to figure it out – time of day it was dropped off, handwriting, choice of wording -- but time and time again, we are stumped.   All we can conclude is that it is likely someone who read my post  “Change 4 Change 4 Jesus” last week, and someone who  desired to creatively bless someone through our  children.

This weekend, we all sat around and counted the money in the same fashion of our tradition.  Sorting the money, counting it up by type and adding it in full -- an astounding $79.91.

We talked and prayed about who we should give it to and made our decision. We recently heard of  a family at our church who has a two year old grandson with feeding difficulties.  He needs a very expensive formula in order to survive.  We will give this money, along with the story and the ornament to these sweet people and pray that they are encouraged.

Isn’t God amazing?  Imagine this!  He provides for one family by the anonymous donation of someone’s change, through our children.  God is so interesting!  He meets our every need in the most unexpected ways – how fun it must be for God to see His people respond to His call and bless people along the way!

To whoever dropped the surprise on our door step -- thank you. You showed my children the value and joy of an anonymous gift.  God is using you to encourage them in being good stewards of whatever He gives, through whatever channels, and you are giving them the opportunity to love someone else. Thank you, thank you. A thousand times -- thank you.

(As for our $59 that we collected as a family, we decided to give it to the Freedom Food Pantry, a local food pantry my son recently visited on a field trip.  Since being there, his passion for helping people in this way is growing. He feels strongly that we share our gift with them, trusting that the Lord will use it as He sees fit.)

Second Annual -- Change 4 Change 4 Jesus

It’s official – we are calling Change 4 Change 4 Jesus a Christmas tradition at our home and the second episode in what we hope to be a long running series took place last night.

Just like last year (click here to read the story of how I came up with the idea), I announced “On your mark! Get set! Go!” and the children took off to all corners of the house. They did not leave a potential hiding place of change undisturbed – my purse, their banks, the car, between couch cushions, in coat pockets, the junk drawer, dad’s dresser, and more. 

The pile of metal gradually grew on the family room floor and then the counting began.  Quarters, nickels, dimes and pennies were sorted, grouped and added up, for a grand total of $59.32.

Although excitement abounded, a faint whisper of disappointment rustled through all of our hearts. Last year  we found an amount much greater than we imagined – the fact that we had all the change from our garage sale, helped a lot, not to mention, that we had never done this before.  It’s not that nearly $60 was not a lot, it’s just that …

And then we talked about how the dollar amount is not important to the Lord, our offering it up to Him – to help His loved ones – is what is important. He would take care of multiplying it, as we placed it in to His hands.  He often uses little things for great purposes. He’s known for doing amazing things!

In addition, unlike last year when we decided to share the money with a sweet local family in need and with Gospel for Asia buying chickens,  this year we did not come up with a firm decision on what the Lord was asking of us.  We all remained relatively silent on who should be the recipient.  All that we could agree on was that it should be someone local – an individual or a family – not an organization.  But, whom should we choose?

This is where we sit currently, a bag full of change and a desire to share it with someone in need.  We agreed to pray about it and listen intently to the needs around us, as we go about our daily activities.  One thing is for certain, the Lord knows who the right person is and He will show us as we continue to seek Him. Perhaps there will be a good lesson in this, too.

Our family would like to extend to your family the Change 4 Change 4 Jesus challenge – a Christmas tradition for a change.  And we’d love to hear from you as to what you did and how you shared your gift – the gift that God gave through you.

Enjoy, my dear readers. It is a precious memory, with a beautiful purpose – sharing the love of Jesus.

PS -- Feel free to share in the comment section below any ideas you may have on who you would like to see helped during this Christmas season.

A Resurrection Basket

The Resurrection Basket is a special tradition in our family. We learned about it from my dear friend Anne’s son, Andrew. He makes one for his mother every year.

Each year our basket has a little bit of a different personality. Sometimes it is large and sometimes it is small. I vary the container – a bowl, a box, a basket, a crate -- depending on whether I can find what I used the year before or what I discover in the basement or garage. Sometimes I splurge and buy a new one.

I always use potted fresh flower to signify life – sometimes I use spring bulbs. We gather the other items from around the house. This year my daughter made a cross out of two sticks and some vine. The girls found fresh moss from the yard and we spread it around the base of the flowers. We added a stone, a nail, a branch with thorns from a rose bush and, new this year -- a small piece of towel. A purple ribbon is woven between the blossoms. Each item represents a different part of the Easter story.

This is a fun activity to do as a group, alone, or in the classroom. Make it for yourself or make it for a friend or a neighbor and share with them the true beauty of Easter – the truth that Jesus died, was buried, and rose from the dead. He is alive!

In addition to the one we made for our family, the girls decided to make smaller ones for each of their teachers.

If you create a Resurrection Basket, let us know! We’d love to hear about it, and any ideas about what you placed in your basket.

Enjoy!