Dear Family of Love and Pilgrims on Our Journey!
Happy Being Thoughtful and Thankful Thursday! Tonight is our yearly or as needed: How to help our family members in need during the holiday and not so holiday season. In this blog you will find suggestions on how to make the lives of the least of these more joyful and comfortable this time of year and beyond. Giving of ourselves is a part of Soul Work. This year I'm suggesting that we begin to help the least of these who are our family members who may rub us the wrong way. This will stretch us beyond the bounds of the usual things we do. It is so easy to give to our favorite charities, cushy foundations that match our political niches but that isn't what we are called to do as followers of Jesus. We must allow GJSH (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit) to stretch our souls and selves beyond our comfort zone. We must allow that stretching to transform and transfigure us every day. So dear family here is this year's guide to helping the least of these our family members!
Being Thoughtful and Thankful This Season and All Through the Year
Take time to go get yourself CPR, First Aid, and made a mandated reporter of sex abuse and harassment by taking classes and becoming certified.
Give of your time to shelters both human and animal. Donate pet food to shelters.
Take food to the food banks and pantries.
Offer to read stories to children in homeless shelters and other places that will let you.
See what you can do to help our Abrahamic sisters and brothers when they have their holidays and may need you to be there to fill in. Ask them to do the same for you. We are all here to help one another.
Donate blankets and warm things!
See who is sponsoring a coat and jacket drive.
Donate your old eye glasses.
Donate turkeys to organizations who need them.
See if you can be available to sit with elderly, disabled, and children and give respite to their caregivers.
Keep an eye out on your walking route for our family members whom you regularly see. Check in with them.
See what you can do to help in rescue missions to help feed the hungry.
Donate Blood.
Enroll in the National Bone Marrow Registry.
Become an organ donor.
Be someone who takes time to spell loved ones who are waiting at bedside in the hospital or at home during the holidays
Take time to give gifts to children of all ages through Toys For Tots, Child Help, Salvation Army.
Donate to : Episcopal Relief and Development, World Vision, Thistle Farms, Doctors Without Borders, FFRME (Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East) or your favorite charity. Check with Charity Navigator to see which organization is the most reliable and how far your monetary donations stretch.
Become a driver for Meals On Wheels.
See what you can do to help our HIV/AIDS brothers and sisters and see what their organizations need.
Be a calming presence and safe house for young people who need a safe house from bullying.
Pay it forward.
Shelf- Stable Lunches/ Bags of Blessing
Make up shelf stable lunches to take in your cars or in your back packs:
Ingredients:
Brown Lunch bag
Napkin/wipes
Plastic spoon
Bottled water or Juice box.
Protein bar
Pudding cups
Tuna or Chicken Salad / Crackers
Vienna Sausages
Granola bars.
Anything that has a good shelf life.
Be creative
Love Bags for both women and men
Donate well conditioned purses/ back packs for women and men with these goodies inside:
Kleenex
Tampons/ maxi pads
Protection
Lotions
Soap
Socks
Nail files
Pen and paper
Card with emergency numbers.
Comb and brush
Mints
Toothbrush and paste.
Scarf
Two dollars in quarters for laundry
++ Pairs of socks, scarves, mittens anything warm.
Flashlights, umbrellas.
Tarps and rain ponchos.
Note pads and paper and pens and pencils.
Flashlights, umbrellas.
Tarps and rain ponchos.
Note pads and paper and pens and pencils.
Be creative
Rag Dolls 2 Love
These can be given to police, fire, EMTs, shelters, and hospitals for children in need of comfort and trauma.
To make Rag Dolls 2 Love Here is the pattern: Rag Dolls 2 Love Pattern
These are my suggestions. What can you add to the list to pay it forward. Take time in brief meditation to do this .
Let us be at prayer using the prayers from : What Can We Do to Help Our Family Members............
Let us pray!
God of Hope, as w prepare to enter fully into the remainder of the year and holiday time may we be given lenses that show us many things and where you would have us go, and what we are to become. Help us to lay down our worries and fears so that we may begin a little earlier to wait, watch, pray, and listen to you with open ears, hearts, and spirits.
God of Hope we pray for all of our family members who are in need of hope when they feel hopeless. Help us to bring hope to Your fragile and broken world.
God of Hope we pray for all our family members who are forced to live on the streets and out of doors during the cold weather. We pray that they may find sheltered areas from the winds, cold, rain, and snow. We pray that there may be homeless shelters and warming centers that will meet their needs as we know that one shelter type doesn't fit all.
God of Hope, we pray for our littlest family members who are in children's hospitals and PICU that they may be healed and be able to enjoy the holidays with their families.
God of Hope, we pray for all those who are dying and have died today that they may feel your loving presence and give them hope as they enter the Thin Places.
God of Hope, show us how to help creatively without having to write a check.
God of Hope, we pray for peace in your fragile and broken world. May we truly be blessed as peacemakers and find ourselves as your children.
God of Hope, we pray for all caregivers that they my find rest and respite.
God of Hope, we thank you for the gift of rain. May we continue to have more rain to refresh, replenish, and renew your drought parched earth.
God of Hope, help us to see You in all of our Family of Love's faces and that we may act accordingly and love, honor, and respect each other.
God of Hope, help us to love more fully, care more deeply, comfort with more compassion, and be more accepting and inclusive of all our family members.
God of Hope help us to console and comfort all who mourn at any stage of grief. Give us courage not to let any of our family members fall through the cracks.
God of Hope, we pray this night for all refugees, captives, political prisoners, victims of violence and abuse of any kind, victims of human trafficking and slavery.
God of Hope, we pray for ourselves and on behalf of others remembering especially______________
God of Hope, we offer our thanksgivings remembering especially______________________
God of Hope, we offer these our prayers and thanksgivings in the name of your only begotten son Jesus. Amen.
+++++
Good Night Family of Love! Do you know why I call you Family of Love? I call you this because God is Love! So we are the Family of Love (God). May our heart, spirits, and souls join together in love, peace, hope, joy, and harmony. I love you and give thanks to God for you this night and always.
Love, blessings, hope, peace, and joy be always yours!
Sara
God of Hope, as w prepare to enter fully into the remainder of the year and holiday time may we be given lenses that show us many things and where you would have us go, and what we are to become. Help us to lay down our worries and fears so that we may begin a little earlier to wait, watch, pray, and listen to you with open ears, hearts, and spirits.
God of Hope we pray for all of our family members who are in need of hope when they feel hopeless. Help us to bring hope to Your fragile and broken world.
God of Hope we pray for all our family members who are forced to live on the streets and out of doors during the cold weather. We pray that they may find sheltered areas from the winds, cold, rain, and snow. We pray that there may be homeless shelters and warming centers that will meet their needs as we know that one shelter type doesn't fit all.
God of Hope, we pray for our littlest family members who are in children's hospitals and PICU that they may be healed and be able to enjoy the holidays with their families.
God of Hope, we pray for all those who are dying and have died today that they may feel your loving presence and give them hope as they enter the Thin Places.
God of Hope, show us how to help creatively without having to write a check.
God of Hope, we pray for peace in your fragile and broken world. May we truly be blessed as peacemakers and find ourselves as your children.
God of Hope, we pray for all caregivers that they my find rest and respite.
God of Hope, we thank you for the gift of rain. May we continue to have more rain to refresh, replenish, and renew your drought parched earth.
God of Hope, help us to see You in all of our Family of Love's faces and that we may act accordingly and love, honor, and respect each other.
God of Hope, help us to love more fully, care more deeply, comfort with more compassion, and be more accepting and inclusive of all our family members.
God of Hope help us to console and comfort all who mourn at any stage of grief. Give us courage not to let any of our family members fall through the cracks.
God of Hope, we pray this night for all refugees, captives, political prisoners, victims of violence and abuse of any kind, victims of human trafficking and slavery.
God of Hope, we pray for ourselves and on behalf of others remembering especially______________
God of Hope, we offer our thanksgivings remembering especially______________________
God of Hope, we offer these our prayers and thanksgivings in the name of your only begotten son Jesus. Amen.
+++++
Good Night Family of Love! Do you know why I call you Family of Love? I call you this because God is Love! So we are the Family of Love (God). May our heart, spirits, and souls join together in love, peace, hope, joy, and harmony. I love you and give thanks to God for you this night and always.
Love, blessings, hope, peace, and joy be always yours!
Sara
No comments:
Post a Comment