Every week we receive unexpected donations. Maybe it’s a house full of furniture, a car, a handful of lawn chairs, two cases of heart marshmallows, 25 bags of clothing from someone’s father that recently passed away, a box of chalk, backpacks filled and ready for the houseless, or a case of Bibles. You never know what you will get and how God will use it. He always has a plan and many times we have to pray and seek Christ to even know what He wants us to do with what is given because in the moment it feels so random.
One thing we have learned is… donations are never random. We had the time that multiple toilets showed up one day and we prayed and asked God, “what are you doing?” The next day, a lady called who was starting a ministry for literacy and what did she need?! Yes, the exact amount of toilets that we had received the day before. Or the day someone’s washer went out was the same day we received a washer at our office. The stories go on and on of God’s faithfulness with so many tangible contributions.
Last Saturday night, volunteers were retrieving our Saturday evening shares from Trader Joe’s and they had an entire cart of flowers for us. One of the volunteers yelled, “leave them, what will we do with a bunch of flowers.” But almost immediately another volunteer knew that God had a plan for those flowers and yelled back, “take them, God has a plan.”
Those flowers. Boxes and bags of them.
One volunteer took them to an outreach in downtown Birmingham, ready to share with friends on Valentine’s Day. Of course God gave us flowers. Here we were the night before Valentine’s with a load of flowers. Little kids could give their mamas flowers. People without luxury and plenty do not use their resources to purchase fresh flowers. But today, they have fresh flowers on their kitchen tables, their window sills or their coffee tables because God gave loads to remind people they are loved. Sometimes we need to know we are worth it and sometimes knowing we are worth it could be a bouquet of fresh flowers.
Another volunteer created 88 bouquets of flowers, after cleaning off all the sad petals and trashing the wilted ones. She and her son left a bouquet at every door of their apartment complex. One little three year old girl saw the flower and yelled to her mom, “mama, we got us a flower!” This volunteer has recently discovered that six of her neighbors are newly divorced and she and her husband have been specifically loving these women. And there you go, God gave them flowers, on Valentine’s Day. Oh how He loves us.
If you would like to help us with unexpected Love Does sharing, to people that need to be reminded that they are not forgotten, please email [email protected]. Maybe you will find yourself at a retirement home, meeting your neighbors, or delivering an emergency meal to a family in our community. Grace Klein Community wants to make it easy for you to have opportunities to share Jesus!