“25 Days of Living In the Light”
For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious bloodof Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.
Now that you have purified yourselves, by obeying the truth, so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart. For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.
1 Peter 1:18-23
There are so many things that a person can do to bring joy and happiness into the world, donate food, clothes or items, buy a homeless person a cup of coffee, but what I did this year, affected the people I did it with just as much as the people I did it for. It was a couple of weeks ago when I was nailed to go stuff stockings for kids and babies in need with my friend Justin. I imagined I knew what I signed up for, and to the extent at which we worked, I did, but I wasn’t aware of how great full the project managers (Justin’s mothers friends) would be to have just one extra set of young hands. All three of them were so grateful that I took the time to come and help them, even though in fact it was also helping me. I had never realized how many kids, younger or the same age as myself there are around me, and the simple things I could do to help. We worked for about four hours, stuffing a total of about two hundred stockings with toys and presents that would make the Christmas’s of all those kids. With each stocking I finished I couldn’t believe how much of an impact this would have, since the manager told us these gifts were likely to be the only things those kids would receive this holiday season. Included are pictures of us stuffing stocking, after we organized all of the items to be given by age section (babies on top left, through items everyone would get on top right), and I think this shows the magnitude of peoples gratitude, for being kind enough to donate all of these things. Finally, I’d talk about how this connects to my faith journey, not what good I did, but the good it did for me, to be an active giver. Too often I overlook the small things that are done for me in my life, and at my school in religion class we talk about how actions taken for the sake of others aren’t always meant to make you feel good, but actually to help you walk through life. Each small piece of love we share, moves us through life a little differently, and that’s the point of life, to be moved and to not have a destination. My family’s faith brought us to Faith Lutheran, and my faith brought me to that stocking stuffing, so in a sense it’s all intertwined. That is how I think my faith helped me in this situation, to not only say “ya I will choose to help”, but also to be moved by my actions for good in Christ Jesus.
Jimmy Ellard
