The people who read this blog are pretty terrific. Yes, that would be you. I know this for a fact because several of you have taken the time lately to write just to let me know you are reading these posts and praying for me.
Just today I received a letter from a reader on the west coast. I was so excited to hear that she went from packing one Operation Christmas Child shoe box last year to packing 60+ this year. What could be more terrific than that?
I think most of us vastly underestimate the effect our lives have on others. We are all interwoven by God in more ways than we can possibly realize.
The 22,647 boxes packed at last Saturday's packing party here in Erie, PA were not packed only by the hands of those at Grace Church last weekend. They were packed in part by the hundreds of people who inspired me and the members of my team over the years and by all those who prayed, even once.
The reader whose letter came today wrote, "I've been praying for you throughout the year, especially around April when you sounded discouraged."
This packing party was saved in part by her prayers.
Each of our lives is a series of links that God uses to form a beautiful chain. Last week's packing party would not have happened without the first link--the newspaper article I read in 1994 that prompted me to pack my first three boxes.
Last week's packing party may not have happened if I had not read an article in an OCC publication a few years later that told of a girl who packed 200 Operation Christmas Child shoe boxes. I was amazed at that and started to dream and to pray about packing 200 boxes.
Your story can be a link in someone's chain. Your word of encouragement can be a link in someone's chain. Your prayer, your letter, your smile, your kindness--each can be a link in someone's chain.
God wants you to make a difference in someone's world today. It's why He made you. You may never know on earth how you changed things for that person, but that doesn't matter. What matters is that you do it.
Do it!
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