Giving hope...one cup of hot chocolate at a time.

Enough water was coming down to create a dreary and annoying drizzle. There was enough water on the roads to slosh inside my shoes. The temperature was low enough to send shivers and to create red noses and numb fingers.

Normally, my first reaction to such circumstances, especially on Christmas afternoon, is to groan and wish I was snug at home or at least in the car. But then I thought about the person sitting in front of me.

James had no home. no family to spend the holidays with. Instead, he got spend Christmas in his old raddy sleeping bag, with a mud smeared garbage bag beside him, and random junk strewn around his living room under the bridge. He got to spend it with these giant gray clouds and this monotonous rain.

On Christmas afternoon Leslie and I trudged under bridges and across streets with my Aunt, Uncle, brother, and cousins in downtown Eugene, Oregon. With hot chocolate and Christmas cookies in arm, we spent two hours with eyes out for panhandlers and homeless people. We also got to give away a few H2O bags as presents for their Christmas.



moral of the story...what in this life is so precious that it's too valuable to give away. Would you give James your family while you took his place under the bridge? Would you give James you whole turkey dinner while taking his granola bar instead? How about your job? your home? your very life?

Jesus told one rich man to sell everything he had and to give it to the poor (Mark 10:21). According to statistics, if you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of the people in the world, and if you have money in the bank, in your wallet and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. I don't believe Jesus was just speaking to that one rich man in the Bible.
He says that those who lose so great a thing as their life have actually found it (Matthew 10:49). He says that any of us who does not give up everything we have cannot be His disciple (Luke 14:33).

James had so little...nothing of value. We have so much. Can we not even spare a couple hours to sing Christmas carols for him or give him our grandma's specially home-baked Christmas cookies?

Give a cup of hot chocolate.
Give a smile.
Give hope. just give.