Ringing in the holidays
Topic: God things
Today it was just me and Maggie here at home. Our two teen daughters and Charles attended the Acqire the Fire youth evangelism conference with our youth group. So Maggie and I cut and baked bunches of gingerbread men (and a few ladies) and we hunkered down with blankets in between batches to watch some movies on the Halmark Movie Channel. This afternoon from 3pm til 8pm, the channel had 2 American Girl movies. That's five hours people! In order to make room on the video we were recording for both movies, we were trying to catch all the commercials and pause the tape so we didn't have a bunch of commercials to fast forward through.

In the midst of commercials about refrigerated cookie dough, restaurants, shopping online, cereal, men enjoying their soup waaaay too much, popcorn, candy, jewelry, cell phones, cavemen being offended, holiday movie ads, and ads for men with special needs that really should not be shown during children's movies (!), one commercial kept catching me off guard...every time! I've seen this commercial before, but it captures me, it just about sends me to my knees and definitely brings tears to my eyes, causes a catch in my throat, and a prayer to my mind. It is a Salvation Army commercial. Have you seen it?

A disaster scene with fire.... a bell rings and as the camera pans out, you see a Salvation Army bell ringer standing amid the flames ringing the bell. Then you see a man, collapsed from alcohol consumption, a bell ringer standing near, ringing. A flood scene and a family on a roof trying to escape the waters, and there is a bell ringer beside them, ringing. The ringer is shown in many traumatic, desperate situations, ringing as if to get our attention. I see those scenes in my mind now, as I walk past bell ringers in front of stores. I hear them ringing as we're getting out of our car and I search for change for Maggie to put in the collection bucket.

The commercial brings it all together, it makes a connection between the anonymous ringer with the red kettle and what the money is helping to accomplish. The Salvation Army really is there during disasters or for people who are hurting with no one to help them. That they do it in the name of Christ is absolutely the icing on the cake!

They're doing the work of the church....throw your change in and make change happen.