The busyness of life can get the best of us this time of year. There is always one more party to go to and one more gift to mark off an ever growing Christmas list. It is also the time of year that many go out of their way to share abundance with many who are so desperately in need of help. Perhaps you gave to a food bank or filled a shoe box to be sent across the sea as a way to share the love that you’ve experienced in Christ. I know that those gifts will be warmly received with gratitude during this season.
It seems that we often get lost in “things” this time of year. There are so many “things” to do. There are more than enough ads scrolling across our televisions and computers telling us what “things” we simply must buy. We might not realize it because our lives are full of “things” but it is possible to live in poverty surrounded by “things”. The donations that you make to those in physical need this season make a real impact, but it is essential that we see people as whole souls in need of more than just physical provision.
The women that The King’s Daughters Ministry will be serving in the coming years will suffer from physical, spiritual, and emotional poverty. The Savior that we celebrate this time of year came to bring healing in all of those areas. He touched people at their greatest point of need; their emptiness and deep need for spiritual healing. The ministry at The King’s Daughters is seeking to do the same.
Part of the mission of The King’s Daughters is to live with eyes wide open to the needs of troubled women and their families in our area. I was imagining the other day how Mary and Joseph must have felt beating down doors in Bethlehem in search of a safe place to birth their baby boy. Each person they encountered responded to them with hearts and eyes closed to their needs. My prayer is that we would not be guilty of the same. My prayer is that we would not turn a blind eye to the needs in our community. The great pastor and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, “We are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.” The spoke we are to drive into that wheel is the spoke of Christ’s love and healing. Give generously this season. Love as Christ has loved you. Live with eyes wide open to the needs (physical, spiritual and emotional) in your community. The greatest need of each woman that will be served by the ministry will not be more presents for their children at Christmas time, but rather the deep healing and life change that only can be brought about by the Gospel coming alive in their heart.
That is a gift worth giving a hundred times over.
Our prayer is that the Gospel might be alive in your heart this season and that the fruit would be an expanded vision of how you can be a part of what God is doing through The King’s Daughters Ministry to address the needs of women and families right here in your community.