Message of Hope: Compassionate kindness to others will bring you the biggest blessing.
Take the time to read and answer the following questions. If you’d like, you can share them in the comments section of this blog entry. Remember, there are no right or wrong answers. There is no answer key to go to 😉 This is just a way of digging deeper into the Word and encouraging each other in our walk.
Heart and Healing:
1. In today’s world, family redeemers may or may not be family. Who are the people and/or organizations that have functioned as a family redeemer during your life?
2. In what ways have you functioned as a family redeemer for someone?
3. This next question can be sensitive. So let’s be very sensitive, loving, and extra compassionate as we talk about it. When you were helping someone, what role did accountability play in the process?
4. What is an area of your life where you sense God is inviting you to compassionately help someone even if it might be an inconvenience?
5. As we wrap up, what is a lesson, a promise, a command, or a warning that you needed to hear from this story?
Remember, compassionate kindness will bring you the biggest blessing .
Living in the Moment 
Good Morning! I hope you are having a great day. I am ‘choosing’ a great day today. The flesh in me just wants to wallow and go to bed. Silly, really. Although not feeling great, I have so much to be thankful for and all I tend to see this week is what I ‘feel’ I am lacking. I have had 15 lbs of tomatoes sitting on the floor ready to be canned into something delicious. Most of my canning supplies are still in the moving trailer and THAT is when I get ‘oh woe is me’. Everything is so much more difficult with stuff packed away, knowing it is there somewhere. But, this morning I bucked up, made blanket forts for the kids all over the house to keep them busy (gotta keep the whining to a minimum if I am to can today and it’s rainy, so sending them outside isn’t an option). Instead of using my nice stock pot that is the perfect size for canning 15 lbs of tomatoes, I got the pots out that I have and am doing it anyhow. It’s a lot more work, but shouldn’t I just be thankful that I DO have tomatoes and the ability to can them into delicious sauce that will help sustain our family this winter? I think so. It’s a work in progress for me today.Now for our Heart and Healing questions. I wonder what God has to show us today? I will answer some of the questions below:There have been times where my parents have been the ‘family redeemer’ in my life. After working hard at getting student loans paid off, they gave a generous gift of money to help me get closer to my goal. Another time, a lovely couple from my church, growing up, wanted to support me in the missions work I was doing in Paraguay and asked what I really needed that I would never do for myself. At that time I was incredibly homesick and worried about where I would work once I returned to Canada. They generously paid for a round trip plane ticket for me to spend Christmas with my family and go for job interviews. A true blessing.Over the years we have opened our home for several people to stay with us when they were in need of a roof over their heads until they were able to find housing for themselves. Food and shelter is something we so easily take for granted and how little it is to open up a guest room and set an extra plate at the table?Accountability in compassionately helping someone out can go both ways. It can mean being accountable as the one giving compassion. Sticking it through to the end, even if it gets difficult and perhaps turns into a burden. We have also found out that there sometimes needs to be accountability on the side of the receiver as well. This can be a tough one for me. When having someone stay in your home, it is easy for the person staying to want to stay longer because it is quite comfortable to have someone do your laundry, prepare your meals, clean your house etc. and then for the giver to start feeling taken advantage of. It is therefore very important to set guidelines and timelines for accountability. There is a very fine line between being helpful and being taken advantage of.When helping someone financially, we have found that people are not easily willing to ‘take’ money, but are willing to agree to an interest free loan. Then it is important to set out a payment schedule and check in with each other on a regular basis, or the loan is “forgotten” about and the relationship gets awkward.Such great questions today. Some of them are a bit personal to answer in a public medium like this, but please do share the ones you are comfortable sharing.
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