Part 1 of 2: Cookie Day

Early Monday morning starts the bake-off for batch after batch of five different kinds of cookies. I receive the news a few hours later that there are at least forty offices in the building anticipating home-made holiday sweetness. I do a quick calculation: instead of the two hundred cookies I figured earlier, that number needs to be doubled. Dad gets a phone call on the way home from work to pick up 15 lbs. of flour and 10 lbs. of sugar because we've run out by mid-afternoon. The last tray of cookies finds its way into a very tired oven at 10:30 p.m.

The girls spend the majority of the day on Sunday and Monday hand decorating twenty-six Christmas bags. There is no time left to make up the difference, but a picture comes to mind with loaves and fishes accompanied by a voice that says, "Don't worry, there will be enough." It is pressed upon my heart to add a glittered star with Scripture verses on each side from Luke 2: 10-12 and John 14:6 because someone might not know about the Christ child.

Off to The Brady Company we go with eight loaves of banana bread and over four hundred chocolate chip, peanut butter, snickerdoodle, sugar and pumpkin cookies.

It is a Tuesday I could not have imagined. As we walked from office to office passing out treats, I was humbled by the generosity of the givers. Expecting a small donation to cover the cost of putting one more box together for the soldiers, I became overwhelmed by the ten and twenty dollar bills that overflowed from my pockets, a check for $100.00 from the woman who arranged for us to come, and numerous bags filled with supplies for our soldiers. Luke 6:38 came to mind once more...

Give, and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.