About a month ago, I had the opportunity to take a road trip with my dad down to Dallas, Texas for Glenn Beck’s Restoring Love event. Let me say that I was ecstatic about this trip.
- I love Beck.
- I love Texas- ready to move there NOW!
- I’m all for a father daughter trip!
- It also included a Texas Rangers game.
As an Elementary teacher, it has been engrained in my brain that you always start with prior knowledge. You can’t expect kids to learn anything new if they have nothing to build from. So here is my prior knowledge or background knowledge for you. Restoring Love is actually the third and final event of a trilogy. The first one was called Restoring Honor, held two years ago in D.C. The second was Restoring Courage, held in Israel last year. And finally Restoring Love was held in Dallas this July. Each of the events focuses on specific pieces of the goal to restore America- because honestly, it’s blowing so far off course from what it was intended to be. I promise, however; that I will try my best to stay out of the political realm with these posts.
Restoring Love was not just one dainty little event. It was actually half a week long of events leading up to the long anticipated Glenn Beck keynote speech at the end of the week. It began at FreePac where thousands of Conservatives came together to encourage each other to keep fighting to restore freedom. Big names like Rand Paul, Dana Loesch, Mike Lee, CJ Bryant, and Ted Cruz were there. To put it in one word- it was spectacular. But that is all I will say about it now. If you are interested in the actual rally you can google the highlights.
The second piece of Restoring Love (which was actually a HUGE part of the week) was the Day of Service. On a hot July day, over 34,000 volunteers gathered outside of Dallas Cowboys Stadium with sweat already pouring down their faces (I don’t kid about the heat) preparing to board buses. What exactly were they doing out there and WHY you might ask?? Well a major theme during the last few months on Beck’s tv and radio shows has been about serving others. It’s been about how we can’t expect to restore our country when we aren’t willing to help out our neighbors- to simply do something, anything to bring light and happiness into their lives even if for only a minute. So on July 27, 2012, tens of thousands of men, women, and children all set out in groups across the Dallas/ Ft. Worth area to take part in over 200 service projects. My dad and I took part in the amazing experience and ended up at a small Catholic school in need of some serious help. We painted preschool classrooms, dusted blinds, put furniture together, wiped down hallway walls and the lunch room, cut down vines outside, and helped anywhere else we could think of.
I remember wondering what the kids faces would look like when they walked into freshly painted classrooms at the beginning of the year. Would they notice? Would they actually even care? Maybe, maybe not. We didn’t do any specialty painting, just a straight light blue, but it didn’t matter to me. I was there to spread love in any way I could and to anyone I could. I can recall many of the school staff looking quite shocked as they entered the building to find so many volunteers cleaning anything and everything they could find. I was just so overcome with a happy spirit knowing that what I was doing made someone else’s life easier if only for a day. The school didn’t have a lot of money. They probably couldn’t hire professional painters to paint everything we did and they certainly didn’t have the time to spend wiping down windows, walls, or blinds. It reminded me of the idea that I may not be able to do great things, but I certainly can do small things with great joy. Not only that, but service is something that gives back so much more than you can offer. It builds others up while at the same time it teaches you humility. I think one of my favorite memories of that day was just watching as entire families worked together to serve this wonderful school. What better lesson to teach your children than serving others with love? I was so privileged to work with a great group of people who all understood the reason behind the service. And even more, it was inspiring to see my own dad getting blisters on his fingers because he was taking the extra time to wipe up all the drip spots from the floor.
So much of what happened that day was like a small glimpse into what the next year of my life is going to look like. It isn’t all going to be fun and exciting, but it does mean something. It can soften someone’s heart. It can bless someone. And it really is all for Jesus. Matthew 25:40 “The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’”
Dad outside of Cowboys Stadium waiting to get on the bus. Me outside the Catholic school after working hard!
And one of the other amazing parts of the Day of Service….. people attending Restoring Love brought non-perishable food to the event and filled 15 of these massive trucks with it. The food went out to cities all around the nation where the government has banned feeding the hungry. Two alone went out to the Navajo reservation in Arizona where they are in desperate need of hope. What a great testimony!
