When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul!
Rabbi Harold Kushner
...Spiritual opening is not a withdrawal to some imagined realm or safe cave. It is not a pulling away, but a touching of all the experience of life with wisdom and with a heart of kindness, without any separation.
Jack Kornfield
Connect. Love. Serve. Those three words were demonstrated at our Second Saturday Food distribution in an incredibly beautiful way. The testimonies keep pouring in but one of our favorites comes from the couple who until recently have always been ones who others have been counted on to give. Due to a change in their circumstances they came Saturday morning to pick up groceries.
Before they ever got to the end of the line to actually receive their supplies they were so enveloped by the Presence of God they were just downloaded with appreciation and thankfulness. Each life story is as unique as the individual living it out but there is very common thread that ties all of us together regardless of where we come from and where we find ourselves economically. Connecting to God, loving and serving is what brings us all together and creates an atmosphere for His Presence to dwell.
I love this prophetic word by Bill and Marsha burns, “Beloved, I have made a way for you to come higher by way of spiritual progression. In order to take advantage of this opportunity, you must let go of everything that has become an anchor and a hindrance. You must release all things that have become a source of agitation, irritation, or conflict in your soul. Hear My voice as I call to you. Allow My nature to be developed in you that will bear the fruit of My Spirit. Let your light shine in the darkness of difficult and disturbing circumstances, for I am with you, says the Lord.
Live Galatians 5:22-23 to the fullest, ‘But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.’ ” These are difficult times that we are living in but if we stay connected to the Source of life and live as Rabbi Harold Kushner suggests, “When your life is filled with the desire to see the holiness in everyday life, something magical happens: ordinary life becomes extraordinary, and the very process of life begins to nourish your soul,” we will love and serve the way He designed us to.
One hundred plus volunteers demonstrated this revelation to over twelve hundred families on Saturday, January 14, 2012. It was our first monthly distribution in several years and the energy was high. For those of us who have been at Word Alive International Outreach since the first distribution on December 10th, 2000 it was like coming home.
We have come full circle after outgrowing every venue that we have undertaken in the past four years. Our property is now large and functional enough that we can accommodate the twelve hundred cars that came through. We distributed twelve hundred bags of dried goods and bagged groceries, two pallets of meat, three pallets of dairy products, four pallets of hygiene items, fifty-five buckets of candy, seven pallets of drinks and eight bins of fresh produce in a little over five hours. All of that is amazing and we are so blessed to be a part but the really exciting part of this outreach is how many families are having their lives radically impacted and changed.
Each week there are more and more families from our community who are coming to know our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. They are connecting to God and experiencing His love through our service to others. Our desire is to touch as many lives as possible to share the Good News of the gospel by connecting, loving and serving.
Spiritual opening is not a withdrawal to some imagined realm or safe cave. It is not a pulling away, but a touching of all the experience of life with wisdom and with a heart of kindness, without any separation. Jack Kornfield
