I feel ALIVE!
Wow, what a week of memories! When I (we) discovered the Alive Festival about six years ago, never in my mind would it be an event that would be so transformational years later.
Last year, our foundation, Changing Lives Foundation, became a sponsor of the Alive Festival and it has been life-changing for me and many others.
It started with me when I met a man named Terry three years ago. He was working the Compassion International booth and I just asked him a simple question about how to change my email on the kids we sponsor. That led to a transformative conversation that went deep and helped me to “be still” in a complex time in my life. His words changed me.
Then last year, it was our first time sponsoring the event and having a booth full of up2Him merchandise and volunteers. We met so many people that year and continued our connection with a group of boys that we had met in previous years. These boys have become a deep part of my heart and our team’s heart.
We also met a couple that would later come to need a grant from the foundation after four of their kids were in a very traumatic accident. Never in their lives did they think they would be the ones needing a grant at the time we met.
Fast forward to this year, people we had met last year returned to our booth to say hi, do a little shopping, or just to tell us a story about their time at Alive. These connections warm my heart.
A very nice woman that bought a journal with the words “Letters to God” on it last year, came to our booth this year to tell us how that journal changed her life. How deciding to write a letter to God each day was the life-changing habit that helped her get through losing a job she had had for 21 years the DAY AFTER she had bought the journal. As she looked back and reflected on the past year, and the letters she had written, she discovered that the trust she placed in God in those letters really carried her through. Now, she owns her own business and is thriving.
There are probably over 100 stories that we heard like that. These stories remind me of a book called “Holy Moments.” It is about the simple moments in one’s life that sometimes seem minor but end up being life changing. (I would love to send you a copy, just request one on my blog.)
I am so grateful for the Alive Festival, our sponsorship with them, and the impact that we all make when we unite to share the love of Christ, and the power that HE has when we trust.
I am ALIVE in so many ways. Ways that I never dreamt possible, and I believe it all started with a word from a stranger that now is a dear friend. Thank you, Terry, for being my HOLY MOMENT, and now we are that for many others.
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