Last week, at our "Share the Love" event, Julie and I found ourselves being the receivers of a great outpouring of love and blessings from beautiful women we regularly fellowship with. Let me explain . . .
We have been planning a "Share the Love" event for a few months. We selected a business to offer missions to and planned our event near Valentine's Day--the designated "love" holiday in the U.S. (maybe around the world). The plan was for me to get together with one of the other unfinished women in our fellowship group and have a fun, baking afternoon--filling boxes with around 300 cookies to be distributed to emergency care workers and other public safety officials often called to duty on holidays and after hours. Then, I got sick. Cookie production plans came to an abrupt halt.
In the meantime . . .
Julie had gotten a part in a play that was supposed to go on in October. After some rescheduling, her play landed on the Friday night before our big brunch event. Every night after work, Julie had rehearsal or dress rehearsal occupying her time.
On the day I fell ill, I called Julie. Julie scrambled and asked Pastor if we should reschedule or just cancel the event.
Pastor said, "No. It's too late to do that now."
Julie said, "Well then, what should we do?"
Pastor said, "Ask for help."
Julie started floating text messages to every woman we had enlisted in past fellowship events. Volunteers started coming out of the pews. I laid in bed, barely able to muster the strength to wipe away my tears as the pinging from text messages announced new volunteers stepping up. Pastor even asked around if any of the women parishioners were willing to rally. They were. We even made some new friends who hadn't attended our fellowship events before!
Some women were volunteering to do double duty...and my fellow cookie baker made sooo soooo many yummy confections! (Along with donations from 13 of our other women friends!)
Matthew 7:7 calls to me as I reflect on our "Share the Love" event and how we discovered those who wanted to pay it forward:
Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
Julie and I found ourselves in tears more than once, so honored we were by the generous giving and helping of other women with a simple ask for help. I had a few revelations from this experience:
Sometimes, I think I am over-asking, but when I don't ask, I might be getting in the way of someone else's call from God to serve.
If people don't want to serve, they can say no (and usually do).
Not asking for help also means missing out on fellowship with others.
Other people may want to help and participate, but not asking for help means closing the door on them (which defeats the purpose of Matthew 7:7).
Pastor's wife is pretty wise.
Along with volunteers from our Unfinished Women's fellowship brunch, we distributed 29 boxes, each containing an assortment of a dozen cookies, to nursing home staff, mental health providers, law enforcement, emergency workers, etc.
Thank you to all of the men and women who helped this vision become a reality!
Wishing all of the love and blessings right back to you,
Michelle & Julie
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