For the week of: Monday, June 4th 2007

"My Jesus Hands"

Several postings back I passed along to you an article by Rubel Shelly that ended with these poignant thoughts:

Self-centered lives are cramped, provincial, and sad.  It is only those souls large enough to live for others that are expansive with joy and bright with love.  Love is, in fact, the only spiritual power great enough to overcome the selfishness that seems to be instinctive to being alive.

As a grandmother now, I often fall into the trap that grandmas do - ”If I had it to do over again,” - and we bemoan our humanness at being less than perfect (did I say light years away from perfect) moms.  Well, we can’t do it over again so we ask our children’s forgiveness and try our best to implement new learning with our grandchildren.  

So as a grandma constantly wanting to learn, I know that if I had that proverbial magic wand and could have a re-do, I’d infuse our sons’ lives with a more permeating lifestyle of service.  Don’t misunderstand, please.  I am very proud of my sons and the hearts I see in them when they serve others.  Whether it’s on the foreign soil of a mission field or the daily service of opening doors for others, speaking kindly to a waitress at a restaurant, or walking their grandmother to the door of her apartment rather than dropping her off at the curb, they serve.  But I would have intentionally included more opportunities to serve as a normal part of their lives. 

So may I suggest you grab a piece of colorful construction paper, trace around your munchkin’s hands and then cut them out and glue them to the middle of a piece of poster board with the words, My Jesus Hands, at the top.  (Now your 13 year old is going to give you the rolling eyes if you try this childish concept with them so you’ll need to adjust the visual aid to be age appropriate and maybe just write your ideas on strips of paper and put them in a “Jesus Jar”.) 

Then every day this summer (yep, permeating behaviors have to happen with consistency and regularity), maybe at breakfast, talk about how each person will use their Jesus hands to serve today in one specific way.  (Once a week you can have a secret Jesus day and let them do an act of service for someone and not tell about it so they learn the humility of unnoticed service.)  These things do not have to be huge and sometimes they can be family activities that the whole family participates in at the same time like offering to help the church custodian straighten all the song books in the song racks after church one Sunday morning.  Other ideas might include:

• Making a bed for a sibling
• An older child offering to play with a younger sibling while mom starts supper
• Dropping off a batch of homemade cookies to the homeless people standing at the corner with signs
• Asking a widow in the church if she’d like to come over for dinner.  The kiddos can make placemats out of paper and help with simple food prep.
• Setting the table for breakfast the night before
• Being the grocery carrier when mom gets back from the grocery store
• Making simple cards and taking them (with a hug) to an assisted living facility
• Making homemade cards to mail to shut-ins, those in the hospital.
• Getting the e-mail addresses of everyone in your church and letting your older children design free e-cards to send as encouragement
• Find a family with young children in our church and offer to babysit for them for a night or an afternoon.  Let your children choose some of their toys to share and help prepare and serve a snack, allowing the guests to go first.

The list is obviously endless.  After the child has completed his act of service, he traces around his hand on the poster board and writes one or two words in the hand to describe what he did.  That night at bedtime prayers, he prays for the person he served that day.

And don’t miss the opportunities to catch your child serving on their own without being encouraged to do so and include that “hand” on the poster.  And somewhere near the posters, make sure you have a sign that reads…Jesus came not to be served but to serve.  When you pray over that child each night, let them hear you thank God for his serving hands that are like Jesus.

May your summer be filled with servant days…just like Jesus.

Lovingly,

Comment Here