For my 50th birthday, my husband threw me a huge birthday celebration. It was a party full of all of our family and friends, it was wonderful!! There was food, music, laughter… And guess what else? No gifts!! I loved it!! You are probably thinking at this point “You had a huge birthday party and didn’t receive any gifts? And you loved it?” I guess you can say I did receive gifts, but they weren’t for me.
All I wanted for my 50th birthday was to make “blessing bags” for the homeless. And now you are probably wondering “What are blessing bags?” Well… I am glad you asked. Blessing bags are small bags that are filled with items people who are homeless may need; you can keep these bags in your car and if you happen to see a homeless person, you can bless them with the bag. The items in the bag may vary. If it is winter, you may put in the bag: gloves, socks, hand warmers, tissues, etc. If it is the summer, you may put in the bag: a bottle of water, snack foods, and sanitizer, etc. You really can customize these bags however you would like.
Now when my husband planned my 50th birthday, he knew that I wanted to make these blessing bags. So he asked all of our family and friends to bring items that could go inside of blessing bags, because we were all going to make blessing bags together. So that night, over 100 people made blessing bags with me, and we all made around three or four bags. So that means that close to 400 blessing bags were made that night. And guess what? We put Gospel tracks in the bags, meaning that the Gospel message of Jesus Christ was going out with these bags!! And for the following weeks and months to come, I heard so many stories from my family and friends about how they were able to give out their bags and how grateful people were to receive the bags.
Fast forward to almost three years later, my family and I still make blessing bags!! We change them up throughout the year to meet the needs based on the season (spring, summer, fall, or winter), and we always put Gospel tracks inside them. We have found that many who were at my birthday party years ago have decided to keep making blessing bags too. So my small family was able to make an impact. And I’m hoping this impact doesn’t just pass on to our family and friends, but that it passes down from generation to generation.
This is how the church lives out the Gospel and builds a legacy!!