Sweet Reminders of God's Goodness

Life here in Shelbyville is going very well!  We finished a week of Upward basketball camp last week, and it was really fun to work with the kids, teaching them not only about basketball (because we are all pros) but about Jesus.  Our memory verse for the week was "show proper respect for everyone" (1 Peter 2:17), so we encouraged the campers to play fair and to treat others respectfully.  The great thing about Upward is that "every kid is a winner" and our focus for the week was to build them up by words and deeds of affirmation, with proper instruction and discipline.  This method worked, as many kids showed improvement over the week.

This past week contained a wonderful surprise.  On Tuesday during camp, one of the church secretaries brought a package into the gym for me.  I thought it was a book that I had ordered, but it looked too small.  When I opened it, I found a beautiful new Bible; but I was very confused, since I had not ordered it.  It didn't take long for me to put the pieces together to know who sent it.  During the fair ministry, I had given away my favorite Bible: it was a pink ESV pocket Bible.  I had told my boyfriend, Matt, about it, and said that I was going to start looking for a new one.  But he immediately--and secretly--ordered it from Amazon and had it expressly shipped to the church.  He didn't know it, but it was the EXACT same Bible that I had given away, except that it was bigger and better because it was larger, it had maps, and it had the words of Christ in red.  

I was so excited and overwhelmed that he had been so kind to do that for me.  Later, as I was thinking, I realized that our Heavenly Father does the same thing for His children: when we surrender what we have to Him, no matter how beautiful or treasured we think it is, He will bless us with something bigger, better, and far greater than the thing we gave up.  Our lives are so much fuller, enjoyable, meaningful, and peaceful when we surrender ourselves--our ideas of who we are or what we should be and do--to His version of who He made us to be and what he has planned for us to do.  But we do not surrender in order to get good gifts, we surrender because we love Him and He is our source of life.  God is so good, and He delights in His children.  

His extravagant love is overwhelming.