Good morning…
As we wake to freeze warnings here in Atlanta, Georgia, I think of those without shelter tonight, living outside, just trying to get through the long, long hours. And with funding for food stamps being withheld, many in our community are also battling hunger this dark, frigid night.
In these still moments, my focused prayer turns to the most vulnerable among us. God, be with each struggling person. Please comfort, strengthen and spark hope. Help each one of us to know your abundant love in tangible, healing ways.
When I go downtown this afternoon to volunteer for the Afterschool Enrichment Program with other women from our Northside Church family, I will take more donated gift cards from friends and checks made out to PAWkids for their ongoing food drive. I will also take a big bag of winter clothes and coats dropped off by a woman in our Thursday morning study. With many of you responding so generously to the immense, loud need in our community, I decided not to put out my regular, public plea to fulfill our quiet, quarterly commitment.
Once each season, our written word community provides fifteen welcome bags for women recovering from homelessness and addiction, as they attend the ISP retreat (Ignatian Spirituality Project) hosted at the Ignatius House Retreat Center. For this Wednesday’s overnight retreat, one friend, who drives women from the MARTA station to the retreat, offered to provide scented candles in decorative tins for the gift bags, another neighbor offered journals, pens, possibly small paint sets, and Kleenex packs, and I reached out to a loyal friend who regularly contributes toiletry kits. Instead of a large group effort, this time God and I will enjoy filling the welcome bags together. Filling beautiful, reusable bags from left over from the last ISP retreat, we will include sweet/salty snacks and personal notes, lip gloss and fuzzy socks, scarves and bracelets, Scripture cards and a copy of my first book, Scribbling a Masterpiece. I also look forward to baking and wrapping for each woman a large double chocolate cookie with peanut butter filling! Tapping all five senses, these nurturing items express the many facets of God’s tangible, timeless love.
Just the thought of preparing welcome bags for these special women brings me joy, pure joy.
As the toiletry kits arrived yesterday, I took the picture above and texted my friend, “Thanks so much. What a quiet commitment you make each quarter to the spiritual health of these precious women. I appreciate your generosity, always!”
So, today I will gather items and bake, and tomorrow I will assemble the bags and deliver them to Ignatius House. All the while, I will be in prayer for these brave recovering women, women I will never meet, women who are sure to be touched and transformed by the Spirit of our living, loving God.
Now all of us, with our faces unveiled, reflect the glory of the Lord as if we are mirrors; and so we are being transformed, metamorphosed, into His same image from one radiance of glory to another, just as the Spirit of the Lord accomplishes it (2 Corinthians 3:18, VOICE).
…Sue…
P.S. If you would like to donate to Ignatius House to help offset the cost of this life-changing retreat, which is free of charge to the women who attend, here is the direct link for your tax deductible contribution: https://ignatiushouseretreatcenter-bloom.kindful.com/?campaign=1361894
