On Sunday we began our 2 weeks of Possessions. From March 3 to March 16th we are to give away 7 things each day. Not go out and buy 7 things to give away...go through our personal belongings and find 7 things to give to someone in need. Here is where I am with this....On Sunday I started with plastic bags and food. Conveniently for me our church is currently doing a plastic bag drive for a hunger awareness group at Wartburg College and we always collect food for the local food pantry on the first Sunday of each month. So I started my expirement giving well over 7 plastic grocery bags and I rummaged through the pantry to find 7 useful things to donate to the food pantry. The rest of this time I have combined into one large donation opportunity. I calculated out that to give 7 things away per day I would need to give away 98 things total. So I cleaned out closets (mine and the kids) and came up with a large tote filled with 86 articles of clothing. In another large tote I gathered 5 sheet sets, 3 full bedding sets, 1 comforter and 7 blankets, and from our coat closet I gathered 6 spring jackets that are 2nd's for my kids or too small. So this comes to a grand total of 108 items (I counted the sheet and bedding sets as 1 each). First of all I am pretty sickened with myself because all of this is EXTRA stuff we have...none of it will really be missed...how sad and sinful! But what brings me peace is to know that next Monday i will be dropping all of this off at the Clothes Closet, a local mission in the basement of the Parkersburg Library that provides free clothes and necessities to local families in need. For the next 7 days until I deliver these items I will be praying over them and asking God to use them to help someone. I will be praying for the families that get these items that they will bring them joy even if their current situation is not ideal. I will also pray for other opportunities...I may have already met my "expirement goal"...but that does not mean that I am not open to God using something I have to help someone yet...not just for the next 2 weeks, but for the rest of my life I want everything I have to used by Him, I want to treat everything I own as what it really is...just gifts from God that I can pass on here on earth...because not one of these things will be going to heaven with me!
Please pray for me and my girlfriends as we journey through this part of the expirement, please continue to pray for us that we can be used by God to reach others in anyway possible!