This month we came together as a community and helped Melissa with her home repair needs. The word "community" is tossed around often these days, but what does it really mean? For those involved with Be the Gift, it is a collection of individuals with a commitment to work together, delight in each other and make others' struggle and condition our own.
Our BTG community of friends, volunteers and donors press through even when it gets tough. We reach out to extend ourselves and see a full range of human emotions: tears, laughter, fear, courage, vulnerability and of course faith and hope. We see past resistances overcome and anger and old resentments forgiven.
The spirit of true community is to appreciate and acknowledge each others' gifts. When BTG comes together with a purpose of sacrifice, demonstrated love and breaking down of walls (literally sometimes), there is a dramatic change in spirit. There is a feeling of joy as we have been temporarily or at least partially transported from our world of routine ordinary preoccupations to a place where we put another's needs above our own.
We are in the atmosphere and Spirit that Jesus speaks of in Matt 18:20 when He says, "For where two or three have gathered together in My Name, I am there in their midst" . For the moment it is as if heaven and earth had somehow met and we all get to be part of it.....truly amazing!
