God in the Flesh

Our family has been on a new adventure lately. Together, we are trying to listen to the nudges of the Holy Spirit and act on what we hear. It all started a while back with one (of an awesome series) on Acts...

A few weeks ago at church, our pastor told a story about a pastor friend of his. This friend was going to be preaching a message that very morning where he would ask his congregation to leave their coats on their seats when the service was over; they would be given to the large homeless population in their area.

You could sense our congregation squirming in their seats. Much to our relief, no such request was made. Much to my chagrin, before the service ended Pat told me that he felt God calling our family to leave our coats.

Pat talked to all the kids about it, prayed with them, and coats were unzipped. Shea freely and willingly passed her winter coat to Daddy. Abbey was a bit reluctant (she was wearing a special coat that she didn't want to part with). As Meg removed her fantastically puffy winter coat, she reassured Abbey, "don't worry, Abs, God will give us new coats." Together, they tossed their parkas onto the stage (the sanctuary was empty by this time). I reluctantly put my one and only ski jacket on top of theirs, and even more reluctantly unzipped Kai's red Baby Gap coat (a treasured hand-me-down from cousins). Braeden wasn't sure about all this business, and he's the kinda guy who needs to think things over, so he wore his coat home and offered it up just moments following his baptism.

During the following service, an additional 32 coats were left. All were donated to the homeless in our town.

Pat and I talked about buying them new coats, to help them see how God (sometimes) rewards us tangibly when we obey him. But we just didn't feel settled about it. God did provide, though, because when we came home and checked our closet of extra winter gear we found a coat in the right size for each of the girls and Kai. They were last year's hand-me-downs, so not the best quality as far as warmth, but they would do...

Today, our children received brand new winter coats - good, thick, puffy, top quality parkas (in matching colours, teehee)! A gift from our church, inspired by the Executive Assistant. We talked with them about their obedience a few weeks ago...how God saw that and used our church family to return what they had freely offered.

As we were walking out the doors of the church, Pat overheard Shea tell some children, "God gave me this new coat!" Yes. He sure did.