recently, my husband and i took a group of nine teenagers from our church to the denver dream center in colorado to do missions work. if you’ve never gone on a missions trip, this is your sign to go. it’s so humbling to take an extended amount of time with the goal being to serve and help other people. and during this week in denver, we did just that! we were able to host services for teenagers, throw community events in the parks for kids, hand out food & pray for homeless people on the streets, & hear stories from men in halfway houses who are turning their lives around.
it’s crazy just how much we can take for granted. it’s easy to let the blessings in our life become so mundane that we forget how much of a blessing it really is.
the thing that left the most lasting impression on me during this week was something as simple as planning a game of signs with three men from the halfway house. if you’ve never played signs, it’s a super fun game where everyone sits in a circle and comes up with their own sign or signal that isn’t too obvious or complex. everyone in the circle is secretively passing “it” around and someone in the middle is trying to find where “it” is as it’s getting passed around. now, everyone is passing it to one another by using each other’s signs to get their attention. it’s such a fun game, but adding these three men made it even more of a good time. one of the guys consistently kept getting caught with it but always with a giggle and a smile on his face as he stood up and had to take a turn in the middle of the circle. later on that week, we got to hear his testimony- how far he has come. and countless times, he would follow something crappy in his life that happened with the words, “but God is good.” this man had been in jail for about ten years, struggled with drugs, still working through his time in the halfway house, etc. but he is still able to stop and be thankful for where God has brought him. and that’s truly amazing!! he doesn’t stop and complain about his life but can find joy in the little things!
i think a lot of us tend to forget where God has brought us from. because none of us is perfect and we all have a story of our own. it might not include drugs and jail (or it might), but God is still so so good for bringing us out of it and closer to him in the process.
i want to choose to be more thankful and to look for all the ways in which i can choose to say, “GOD IS GOOD!”
let that be your reminder today. ❤
tia marie
tia marie 