Let’s Create a Hurricane of Love

For God has destined us not for wrath but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, so that whether we are awake or asleep we may live with him. Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, as indeed you are doing. – 1 Thessalonians 5:9-11

The last two or three weeks have been… really weird, my friends. News is hard to watch, but we need to watch the hard things that are happening. We’ve seen storms devastate huge numbers of lives, and have watched as strangers wept and helped each other.

Some of us may be helpers ourselves, or we may being the ones who are helped. I’m willing to bet that all of us are wondering what Jesus would have us do right now. We can all do something, something beautiful and meaningful and full of love.

Not all of us are in a position to drive to any of the areas that have been torn apart by hurricanes or floods or tornadoes or earthquakes—all of which have happened across the world in the last three weeks. But we know that prayer is powerful, and we can all pray for our brothers and sisters who are hurting.

Here’s something else we can do, and something I hope you’ll do along with me over the next few days:

I want to invite you and you family—your church family, your friend-family, your work family—whoever you spend your love and life with—to help out in a hands-on way. Some time over the next two weeks, grab a stack of 3 x 5 notecards—however many you feel is appropriate. I want you to decorate those cards with messages of love and encouragement for our brothers and sisters who have been touched by the destruction of this hurricane season. Your notes can be as simple or as complex as you like—they just have to fit on a 3 x 5 card.

Gather up your cards and say a prayer over them, and then put the notes you and your family make together in a big envelope and mail them to me, here at Forward Movement. These are small tokens full of big love, prayers, hopes, and comfort that our friends and neighbors who have been displaced, flooded out, frightened, left without the stuff that has made up their lives—something they can hold in their hands, and see a message of love and encouragement from YOUR family directly to them.

Forward Movement
412 Sycamore Street
Cincinnati, Ohio 45202

Attn.: Rachel Jones

I’ll make sure our love letters are delivered to folks who have been impacted by Harvey, Irma, Katia, and Jose. Please have your letters mailed in to me by September 29, 2017.

Thanks for loving each other, and for growing love in your hearts and homes day by day.

What token of God’s love has been important to you in a difficult time?