Five months ago, on my way to church I heard God speaking to my spirit. I know that sounds weird if you aren’t into that kind of thing, but hang in there with me, cuz this is a cool story. It was 30 days before my 40th birthday. I was struggling with turning 40 for a year and a half already at this point (I’m really not sure why).
Here was the conversation.
God: In the next 30 days I want you to be a blessing to 30 people. I want you to send them each $40 as you are about to turn 40.
Me: wait. what?!?
God: yes.
Me: nah, God I’m good. but that a SUPER cool idea for… ummm.. NOT ME to do.
GOD: silent
Me: ummm. but…. do you realize how much this is going to Cost me?!?!?
God: YUP.
Me: But… but… but… (enter in ALL the reasons that I was just NOT the one he wanted for this job, and how I couldn’t pull it off and couldn’t afford it etc)
God: silent
me: okay God, Fine. I’ll do it. Because you have never lead me astray. You have ALWAYS provided for me when you place something on my heart. When I am faithful in the little things, You have trusted me in the big things. I will be obedient God and I will trust you.
–this is where I started to get excited about how God is going to use this to bless others!!!! and THEN I hear God go:
BUT WAIT THERE IS MORE!!!
(to which I said, alone in my car) “OF COURSE THERE IS”
God: I want you to send them ANOTHER $40 for THEM to be a blessing to someone else!
Me: God, for real?!?!? That’s like… $2400!!!! TWENTY FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS!!!! Two THOUSAND four HUNDRED dollars.
God: yep.
me: okay God. Let’s do this!!!!!!!!!!
So, as you can see it was a battle to trust God. But per usual He did not disappoint. It has been 5 months since that conversation with God. Since then I managed to be obedient and send out the blessings. Watching over the last 4 months as the stories of the ripples of this have flowed in, has been such a blessing. The coolest part is its still an active thing. Not all of the blessings have been passed on yet.
Before I even started sending out the blessings, I was chatting about this whole thing with my Best friend… and a really great conversation happened. Her 11 year old daughter wanted to be “on the list” of kids getting a blessing letter. She was overjoyed with the thought of being able to be a blessing to someone. She exclaimed “I will give it to someone who REALLY deserves it!!” My best friend, very thoughtfully replied “OR, you could give it to someone who does NOT deserve it in your eyes, Just like we don’t deserve God’s grace” WOW. It was in that moment that I knew that this was going to be a super cool thing and it was bigger than me.
What happened first was I had to create a list of these 30 humans. As I started thinking about who God wanted me to bless I just started writing a list of names. EVERY ONE I wrote down I heard a NO. Nope, not them. UNTIL I started writing down the names of kids. So I got the feeling that the 30 all needed to be kids. By the time all was said and done the youngest kid was 2, and the oldest was 18. Almost exactly half boys and half girls. I send them each a letter that looked like this:
and wrote a hand written note with each one.
The ideas quickly started rolling in! The kids were so excited!! I’m going to share a few of the stories in this Blog, but know that this isn’t all of them. and I’m sure we will hear more as the months go on. But I just couldn’t wait much longer to share the start of the story.
The different ideas the kids had. The people they wanted to bless and the difference they wanted to make in someone’s day truly blessed me!
My nephews cashed out their money and went to Walmart and just started randomly handing out $5-$20 cash to Random strangers! Like the little boy who was celebrating his 5th birthday (they didn’t know that when they walked up to him!) The mom who looked like she could use some cash when trying to figure out what diapers she could afford. The teacher who used the money to buy water balloons for her students for their end of the school party. The smiles they saw. The Joy they brought. PRICELESS.
Here is a photo collage from my nephews from that day! So cool!!!
Another cool photo I got was from Jack. He decided to be a blessing to the local Animal Shelter. He spent his blessing money on stuff to help the shelter and delivered the stuff in person to the shelter. How cool is that?!?! Way to go Jack!! I attached the text from him mom as well, because it touched my heart!
a lot of the kids blessed their friends with the $40. The joy in their faces, made it ALL worth it! I got a video from one of the Little girls that I would love to attach, but this Blog doesn’t like video attachments apparently. She was very excited to give $20 to two of her little friends. I got another video from two of the little kiddos telling me what they did with their money. I’ll attach a screenshot of the text from their mom
The “Apple” thing she is referring to is a former coworker of ours who needs a heart transplant so the kids are generously giving some of their money towards Apple’s heart. That just about made me cry. And the fact that a simple act of me being obedient could spark and new interest is beyond what I thought possible.
Two Of the kiddos gave their blessing money to an organization at their church called “Speed the light” which they give so others can speed the light of the gospel to a world in darkness. So literally the blessing money went to spreading God’s word!! Their brother took his $40 bucks into Target and spend the whole time shopping looking for JUST the right kid to bless. He spotted him and took off running across the store he was so excited and just handed him the $40. The mom stopped him and was like “wait, is this legit?!!?” Seeing the conversation unfold between them was a blessing. The mom couldn’t believe what just happened and neither could the kid. I’m guessing they will be talking about and remembering that for awhile!
Now the two year old was a little too little to really know what this was all about. So I just told his mom to give the money to someone in his “circle.” So she gave to someplace close to their heart and very personal to them. The Foster Closet. An organization that helps family who are doing foster care!!!
One of the little girls bought books for some of her friends and wrote them a note inviting them to a book club to meet up and talk about their books!!! She even went as far as using some of her own money to buy books for another friend!!! That touched my heart too!!
One of the 18 year old’s… keeps the $40 on her at all times and keeps asking God who she should bless with it. She is getting a little impatient, but is trusting God to bring the right person in her path. I think that’s pretty great too!!! It is God’s perfect timing but we don’t see the whole story. God does.
The ripples that ONE act of kindness. ONE act of obedience creates is astounding to me. The stories are still rolling in. But it’s just been on my heart to document the origins of my “birthday blessing” or my 40 for 40 challenge. I’ve been calling it both! I’m super duper excited to see where God takes this over the next few months… and what He might have in store next!
To be continued….
butterflyification 