Count your many blessings, name them one by one.
Count your many blessings and see what God has done!
Are you already humming that little tune some of us grew up singing?
The Daughters of the Holy Cross (Esther Chapter) adopted the “Blessing Jar” project to do just that – count our blessings. Whenever we feel the Lord bless our lives, we add coins or bills to our jars. Then at our quarterly meeting, we turn in our funds to be used collectively for service projects.
Because of the pandemic, we have not been able to hold in-person meetings these past months. Our Blessing Jars were getting pretty full! In his book Double Blessing, Mark Batterson says, ”Blessing is yours for the asking, but the only way to keep it is to give it away.”
The twenty-two ladies of the Esther Chapter have had many storms in our individual lives recently: surgeries, infections, ICU for family members, need for a pace maker, death of one of our members, death of a member’s beloved spouse, physical and spiritual pain, isolation and the list goes on. But even in the midst of these tough times, we can truly say Thanks be to God! By being thankful in the midst of difficulties, we acknowledge the Goodness of God. We are all so blessed to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, we are all so blessed to be a part of a loving community of believers, and we are all so blessed with God’s daily provisions.
So how should we give away what God had given to us?
Service, is one of the four-fold vows that we take as Daughters. One service project we have adopted is Spicy Grove Youth Center in Jamaica. The director, Pastor Danny Myers, is a dear friend of Daughter Linda Laird. She has taken many mission trips supporting this wonderful Christian organization. Back in February, we collected backpacks and school supplies and sent a barrel filled with these and food to Jamaica. We now felt it was time to give again from the overflow of our hearts and our Blessing Jars. Pastor Danny was overjoyed to hear from Linda that we wanted to help out from what we collected from the Blessing Jars. Even with COVID19, he was still able to run a summer camp for the children and he had just bought the supplies, solely on his strong faith that God would provide for the children. Linda told him that we would be sending about $700. But God had a different amount in mind, because once everyone had sent in their Blessing Jar funds, our grand total was $1400. Now that’s a Double Blessing!! It was more than we or they could have possibly imagined.
We remember Jesus’ Words, “In as much as you have done it unto the least of these my children, you have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40).
And Jesus also said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Mark 10:14)
We are blessed to be a blessing to children we may never meet this side of heaven. God fronts the blessings and He will use these children in ways we can only imagine. God calls us to do His kingdom work here on earth as it is in heaven.
“Train up a child in the way he should go; and even when he is older he will not depart from it.” (Proverbs 22: 6) Now that’s a promise!
I hope you too are counting your many blessings and with grateful hearts give away more blessings than you will ever receive.
To God be the Glory!
