It's been a very long and tiring week. Actually, it's been a long and tiring month. I've had working overtime at work this week to count inventory, had holiday errands to run almost every night after work, and was busy in the evenings with Ladies Auxiliary things and with tying up loose ends at Fourth Avenue Baptist Church (FAB). When people have asked if I was looking forward to Christmas, I told them I was looking foward to having a four-day weekend so I could get a little bit of rest.
I was up at 8:30 this morning and hit the ground running. This was the morning of the official trip to the post office to mail our donation checks from FAB. The trustees met last week and decided what Christian charities and mission organizations would get FAB's money, and I'm very proud to say that in about an hour's time, we disbursed almost a quarter of a million dollars. No, that's no exageration nor mistype; we had over $200,000 to give away. We kept cool, calm heads and we divided up among local, state, nation and world-wide mission groups and Christian charities. I think that the Lord is proud of the way we handled it. So fast foward to this week, when my last act as treasurer of FAB was to write out the checks. That was the easy part; the hard part was filling out all of the cards and slips to send the checks by certified mail. I finsihed up yesterday during afternoon break at work, and this morning I braved the post office lobby full of last minute holiday mailers to get my checks mailed. I was only there for 20 minutes, so that wasn't too bad.
Let me backtrack a bit. As I said, I got up at 8:30 with the intention of getting to the post office early, but that didn't happen. Another Christmas "project" happened before I could get my checks mailed. Our friend Steve next door stopped by, and asked if we knew of any needy families that our VFW could give a Christmas basket. We couldn't think of anyone, and after a few minutes I had an idea. FAB gave the remaining $200 in our benevolent account to a local family whose house burned to the ground a few weeks ago. I'd heard about the family through Diva Stacy - the family's kids attend school with her children. Since they lost everything, I figured not having to buy groceries would help them out some. I made a couple of calls and within a few minutes time I had contacted the fire department that had responded to the family's fire. I explained to them what we wanted to do and they said they had some clothing and toys that they were going to take to that family, and that they would be more than happy to deliver the food for me. Now that the logistics were taken care of, all I had to do was go over to the VFW and pick up the food and take it to the fire house. Easier said than done.
This Christmas miracle of the food was about the same size proportion of my friend Rick's toys he donated a few months ago. I was expecting to get a bushel basket full of some canned goods and maybe a canned ham. By the time that Steve finished hauling out the boxes of food, my BMW was full from the backseat to the front. The firemen and I were both amazed. They, too, were expecting a basket of food and not an entire full-sized car filled to capacity with boxes and cases of food. Since were was literally a ton of food, I told them to use some of it to make up some more baskets to give away. They thanked me for helping out, and offered to wash my car for me, since a few of the firemen were washing the Chief's SUV. They said it was the least they could do. How could I refuse?
During the few minutes it took them to wash the car, I stood there thinking about what all I'd accomplished in a couple hours' time this morning, and all of the people who will benefit. First of all, let me say that I'm not bragging, nor am I patting myself on the back. I'm saying this to make a point: it occurred to me that what I did this morning was what Christmas is all about. In the middle of me being stressed out about work and trying to juggle visits and activities and everything else over the next few days, and with stressing over "Do I need to buy something else for Mom or Dad?" it hit me hard. We should be celebrating the birth of the One who we are supposed to serve by helping and doing for others. That's what Christmas is about.
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