Thanks Giving

This Thanksgiving, we finally got to participate, as a family, in something I have wanted to do for a long time.

We spent the morning serving others. It was a gorgeous day too. Fairly relaxed once I turned the alarm off and the oven on, at 5am. 5 am does not usually exist in my universe, in case you didn't know.

The boys left early to play football with another church. The two youngers and I headed over to a local church we were serving with to deliver the baked turkey and prepare for the feast they would be serving later.

There were homeless people, local residents and church members that enjoyed the delicious and rich meal.

There was enough food to even pack to-go boxes for whoever wanted them. To-go boxes were also packed up and delivered to local areas where homeless people would be congregating.

I think it is so important, as parents, to teach our children, as young as we can, to think of others. To look outside of themselves and find ways to help and serve others. It helps cultivate a spirit of gratitude and contentment. If we parent our children with over-indulgence, of material things specifically, and respond to their every demand, we will only cultivate self-centered, unhappy, never-satisfied human beings.

Indulge in love-yes. Stuff and demands-no.

This was the first time we've served in this capacity but serving and giving is a way of life for our family. I teach my children to believe that when you give you will receive. It's a circle of blessing within God's economy that can not be denied. This is the way it has worked for us in our lives, anyway.

I am not teaching them to serve in order to get accolades or to show off. We are a family that has experienced being down to nothing and still recognized we had more than enough. It is a motto or prayer, we live by, based on Psalm 23:

We have everything we need, 
more than enough,
and enough to share.

God is Jehovah Jireh, our provider. Everything we have, every good and perfect gift, has been given to us by Him. How could we then, ever with hold from someone else who had need, when we have been given so much?