Hope Is A Star

I love my star lights. It takes a whole afternoon to string these lights the length of our front yard but it's so worth it. I cover most of our property with lights, including the chicken coop (my mother says it looks like a casino). I enjoy it for the month of December, for Christmas, but if there's one light I'd keep up all winter, it's this one. The star of hope.
Especially this year. This afternoon, as I was decorating inside the house in preparation for this Sunday afternoon's "Project Shoebox Social", a woman arrived at the door with four bags full of gifts for the shoeboxes.
The response to my call to "be a light in the world" has been remarkable. Amazing grace. I called (read about it here), you're answering. Six women who can't make it to this Sunday's gathering have donated money or dropped off items. That's not something I expected. I certainly didn't expect a woman to recognize me while shopping in Bulk Barn and give me forty dollars.
It makes my heart shine like a star.
It gives me hope because it means that everything I say from a church pulpit -- a spot fraught with issues of relevance and hypocrisy and doubt -- aren't just words that get caught up in the ceiling fans of these sanctuaries and never follow anyone out into the world. It means, too, that we don't need churches to connect with other loving, passionate people, to find people who are willing and able to answer a call to help others, to offer hope and joy and love to strangers. But we need more than Facebook and Instagram; we do need a place to gather and we do need a project around which to rally, and I'm grateful to offer that "heart and home" this weekend.