Blessing Bags

I had an experience last week that has really stayed with me and made me think a lot.

I was driving in to the parking lot at Walmart and noticed this young father.  He appeared with the usual sign made on a piece of cardboard and it said something like "family needs help."  What made me really notice him were the two little boys sitting on the sidewalk with him. They were so cute and were really sitting there so nicely and in the cold.  It was a sunny-ish day and not as cold as some of the days lately.

At first I was kind of mad at that dad for having those boys out there in the cold, and possibly using them to get people to feel sorry for them. But then I changed my thoughts and tried not to judge and just to think of what I could do to help.

While I was in Walmart I looked around for some simple food items I could leave with them - found single serve sliced apples with peanut butter and a bag of soft wheat rolls. Then I bought a subway gift card and when I was leaving the parking lot, stopped and handed the bag to the dad.  He was very grateful, as were the boys.  I thought about them a lot that day and those following.  I'd like to help more but really don't want to give out money.  Then I saw this great idea on Pinterest and it came from this blog.  Perfect.  Something we could do as a family and hopefully would be helpful.  I told Paul about it and he agreed that would be something we could do.

So yesterday Brooke and I went to Costco and got all the items I thought we could put in a ziploc bag.  We decided to stick with mostly food items but I did want to put in some tissues and chapstick.  After church today our family put together several "blessing bags" and had a good family discussion about why we were making these bags.  It was a great sunday activity.  Now we have several bags to put in each of our cars and I am grateful that we can somehow share with others.

our "blessing bag"
we put in gum, chapstick, fruit snacks, capri sun, peanut butter crackers, granola bar, applesauce, trailmix