It's the last day of National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child. All around the country this scene is playing out as filled trucks are getting ready to transport millions of precious shoeboxes to processing centers to be inspected on the next leg of their journey to boys and girls all over the world.
NCW is hard. It's always a hard week--physically, emotionally, spiritually. We who have been through this for years have come to expect that. Even with all the extra prayer support the struggle can be real.
This might seem like a leap, but I was a childbirth educator for 19 years and I find some analogies between NCW and childbirth. Most of the time childbirth is hard. It's exhausting and scary and filled with unknowns and struggle. But...at the end of it you get the prize--a baby!
And when we all watch those trucks pull away we feel a little of that sense of wonder you feel when that baby is placed in your arms. Ahhh...it's amazing to be part of a miracle, isn't it?!
I read this verse this morning and it seems so appropriate for the final day of National Collection Week: "Look among the nations! Observe! Be astonished! Wonder! Because I am doing something in your days--You would not believe it if you were told." Habakkuk 1:5
Be astonished! Wonder! God is doing things we may never get to see on earth through these simple but powerful boxes. Yes, it's hard. We get beyond tired but it's not without purpose. It's the good tired that mixes with exhilaration.
God is doing something in our days--and we GET to be a part of it.
Oh, and by the way...we prayed all year for 42,000 boxes and God gave us...
This number includes the 22,048 packed at our packing party in September. We are so blessed!
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