Thank You
It was right at 7:30 when we started to move that line of cars yesterday. I was watching from a distance. Maybe 300 yards...where the line began. I was practicing social distancing, primarily because my son has had respiratory trouble in the past. He’s been hospitalized a few times, so it’s better for me to just stay away right now.
In some sense it’s really hard to do that. But I’ve actually come to enjoy it some also. One of my favorite things about being at the front of the car line is that I see every face that pulls in to receive our services. Yesterday there were about 230 of them, a pretty good increase from what we typically see.
I watched a car pull in at 7:30 and then I saw it stop before passing behind the trees out of view. I thought maybe something was wrong. I started walking back there to see what was going on and that was when I realized it was the back of the line. We had filled up the enter car rider line at Harvest Elementary with people waiting to get food. I couldn’t believe it.
But the best part about being down there in isolation each Saturday morning as all those cars pull in, is something I never anticipated. It’s, without a doubt, the “thank you’s.” The people that pull in, pull over, and roll down the window just to say “thank you.” These days, many of them I don’t even know. The virus has brought us many new people to minister to. But those moments are really special to me. Especially when the genuineness in someone’s voice can’t go unnoticed. We really are needed.
And no matter how much time goes into bringing all that together, one simple, honest, genuine “thank you” makes it all worth it. When you realize that someone needs you, you can be there for them, and it is a thousand times appreciated, that is a moment from God. Those moments bring us together. They make us a community. They connect us on a deeper level.
So in keeping with that, we owe a lot of thank you moments. To places like the Manna House, Publix, and Big Lots. We owe a thank you to Harvest Elementary, their principal, and their CNP workers who gave up their Saturday morning to help us distribute food out of their cooler to families in need. We owe a thank you to the lead nurse at Madison County Schools who gave up her time and resources to make sure all of our volunteers were protected.
We owe a thank you to businesses all over town like Matt Curtis Realty, Strata-G, KODA, Davidson Technologies, New Millennium Technologies, and several others. We owe a thank you to several individuals you continue to donate to House of the Harvest and to many more who have recently begun. We owe a thank you to all the Madison Cross Roads teachers that came out to help deliver and distribute food. We owe a thank you to all our volunteers that were willing to continue to put themselves at risk so that people would get the necessities to survive. And I owe a huge thank you to a tremendous team at House of the Harvest who runs pickups, organizes, sorts, plans, packages, plans more, and now delivers each Saturday morning...out of the goodness of their heart.
Today we celebrate the reason we do it. It’s a small sacrifice compared to the one that was made for each of us. As a person who believes in community as much as anyone, I would say there aren’t many things in life that were meant to be celebrated in isolation. And if there were, the resurrection of our King certainly wouldn’t be one of them. But, as I learned yesterday, sometimes moments of isolation create opportunities to express genuine gratitude on a much deeper and more personal level. Yes, today will be a good day for that. Who knows...this may turn out to be the best Easter yet.
“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” John 15:13