It’s been 14 days and we’ve raised over $3,000. Excuse me, what? Yeah.
Two weeks ago, I stuffed my heart into envelopes, sealed them tightly, and slipped them into the blue mail box across the street. I came home and hit publish on my first blog for the World Race. I’ve been thinking about the significance of those two moments. Two moments that now represent very tangible, very public acts of handing these next ten months of fundraising over to God. Two moments of great invitation.
After the mailbox closed and the blog had been published, God and I exchanged some words.
“Abba, I’m walking forward with a whole lot of faith here. I’m trusting you with this one, because to be honest fundraising scares me. To be honest I’m worried others won’t want to join in this story you’re writing, but I can’t do it alone. I don’t want to do it alone. I want so much to share this next chapter. I’m trusting you with the details here.”
And in the last 14 days God has leaned in close with 3,000 whispers of, “I’m with you.”
I wish I could express the weight and meaning attached to every donation. Because it’s more than just $15, $200, $1,000. I don’t so much see a dollar amount as I do a person or family saying in a very sacrificing, humbling way, “I’m with you. We’re with you.”
With every donation, and the encouraging words accompanying them I’m reminded of the people God has gifted to me. People who give out of their much and out of their little. People who are saying, “We believe in you. We believe in what God is doing here.” I want you to know if you have donated, will donate, or hope to donate, your dollars are a continued whisper of God’s faithfulness, a continued whisper of His steady, providing hand in my life, and I am just so grateful. I am so grateful to have you on my team, to know you stand in my corner. I am so excited for you to experience all that’s ahead alongside me. You are a very real part of what God is beginning to do here.
It’s a powerful thing, when someone leans in close to say, “I’m with you.”
Jesus knew that. Of all the things Jesus could have said, I love that His last words to us in the book of Matthew are, “I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.” (28:20).
Those words change the Story.
