Next week is Thanksgiving.  {gulp} 

As we gear up for my annual “25 Days of Christmas” posts, I’m going to do things a bit differently.  I’m still going to take photos of Christmas decorations and rememberances … but, I’m going to also list also list our family’s giving and blessings.  Perhaps you’ll join me, with comments on your own giving blessings.  We sure don’t have much, but what we do have, we’d gladly give to others.  As long as we have health, happiness, home and food – our faith will carry us through whatever else we need to calm our souls.

This week, we gave toys to a mission fund at our church.  It wasn’t a lot, but it was about 10 small gifts that a fellow congregant will deliver to a church in the Texas valley, who is in a very poor and disadvantaged area.  We also donated funds to my daughter’s fifth grade class, so they could invite individuals to their class for a Thanksgiving feast. 

If you have or know of a group or people who could use blessings from others, feel free to leave a comment.  We’ll see if we can’t help share our own blessings with others.

We’ve had some major upheavals in our church.  We’ve endured this before, and left the church we were members of when it happened.  This time, we’ve prayed harder and stuck with it.  It’s not easy, but it’s satisfying to know that our children are happy in their faith community (whereas they weren’t previously) – and at the end of the day, that’s really the most important thing to our family.

One of the things that has happened is that our part-time pastor, who ran the men’s Bible study on Fridays that JD and the son-man attend, moved away.  He realized his wife’s mind was failing (dementia or Alzheimer’s) and he was already battling a muscular degenerative disease – and he could barely help himself, let alone take care of his wife.  So before our previous pastor left, he found an assisted living facility for Pr. Jim and his wife, within their budget…but, 4 hours away.  It’s unfortunate, but we think that our previous pastor was basically handling everything for Pr. Jim and that he knew he was leaving our church, so he wanted to do one last thing to take care of Pr. Jim & his wife.

What a huge mistake.  Our family wasn’t the only ones who shared our love with them, but our son-man surely gave Pr. Jim some soul-bursting hugs, whenever possible (even when Pr. Jim was up at the altar, waiting to preach on a Sunday morning, son-man would go right up there and give him a hug, without a care in the world except making sure Pr. Jim knew he was there and loved him).

Pr. Jim has a kind and loving soul, and was moved off to a place where they didn’t know anyone, had no church community close enough that they could attend, and the facility where they moved to didn’t fulfill the contractual promises that they’d been offered.  And he’s trying to deal with his own body failing him while his wife’s mind is slowly failing, too.

Last week, he realized he could no longer go it alone, and they made the decision to move back to town.

We were delighted with this development, and offered to do whatever we could to help them not just get back here, but find the assistance they needed to live in their own home (they tried to sell it, but the contract fell through).

I have been amazed at the responses from some folks at church, when I approached them about helping out – mostly, folks took the attitude that it was too bad, they left and now they should deal with the consequences themselves. 

Wow, what a Christian thing to say?!!

We’ll do whatever we can to help.  JD talked to Pr. Jim on the phone last night, and we got a list of things that they need – little things that won’t take much time, but are necessary for them to live in their own home … grocery shopping, meal preparation, light cleaning, etc.  No, we can’t do it all – especially since we live 45 minutes from them … but, we can help organize and assist them in their desire to live out their final days as comfortably as possible. 

We’ll do what we can, and pray that others will see a need and help out when they can.  They deserve love, in whatever way we can give and show it.  End of story.