Grace

Grace:  Unmerited divine assistance given to humans for their regeneration or sanctification; 

a virtue coming from God.

A few months ago I stumbled upon a little book called Grace-Based Parenting.  It teaches tired, overworked, stressed out mommies and daddies to respond to their little ones with an abundance of love and grace.  Even when they write all over the walls with marker, or joyfully run and scream all over the house and wake the baby, or spill a full cup of vegetable oil while helping you cook (not that I'm speaking from experience or anything!).  We are to show them grace...undeserved favor....much like our Heavenly Father shows us each and every day.

This book really spoke to me.  Not just because I want to be the best mommy I possibly can to the four precious gifts God has given to me, but because it opened my eyes to all the ways God shows his grace in my life.  His grace and goodness abounds, whether I do anything to deserve it or not.  It may be something little, like just the right verse of scripture, or the perfect song on the radio, or a beautiful sunrise after a long night.  These are the times when I've had to stop and ask Him "Why are You so good to me??"    

Sometimes, however, He shows his grace in a BIG way.  These are the times I am left speechless; in awesome wonder....And this is what He has done for the Maple Tree over the last week. 

It all started last Tuesday.....Well, actually, it started back in December.  I delivered 50 care packages to an oncology nurse I had met through one of my board members.  This nurse was sooooo incredibly sweet and supportive of our mission at Maple Tree.  Within five minutes, she had written down information about our organization for their company newsletter, booked a speaking engagement for me to come and tell all her nursing friends about us, and also gave me the contact number for a good friend of hers who works for a local foundation. This foundation supports medically-related non-profit organizations -- perfect for us, so I was very excited to get in contact with her.

Once we got through the craziness of the holidays, I was able to schedule an appointment with this lady at the foundation.  I tried not to get my hopes up too much about this meeting, because I had tried to structure Maple Tree in such a way so that it would not be dependent on grant funding.  I want our focus to be on the patient, not on money!  However, after checking out their website, I was impressed with the organizations they have funded in the past and thought it might be a good thing for us.  As I rode the elevator up to our meeting, I briefly prayed that God would give me peace about the meeting and let me know that I was acting in His will.  As the elevator doors opened, what greeted me, but two glass doors with a very large Maple Tree painted on them...

I was so blessed by this meeting.  The lady was so supportive of the Maple Tree and really encouraged me.  I told her that the greatest need Maple Tree had at the moment was for rental space.  Although we are happy to meet people in their homes for exercise training, it would still be nice to have a facility where we could train them.  I also want a place to hold prayer groups, nutrition seminars, and I have dreams of hosting summer camps for children whose parents are fighting cancer, or even for children who are battling cancer themselves!  In order to do all this, we really need a facility.  However, I have been reluctant to take on a lease because I haven't wanted to burden my family with having to cover rent until Maple Tree is secure enough to do so on its own.  After hearing all this, the lady gave me contact information for a friend of hers who owns a building in east Dayton (near Childrens, for all the locals reading this!).  He runs a non-profit called the Life Enrichment Center, and is trying to house the building with faith-based non-profit organizations that serve the community.  At the moment, there are 9 other non-profits housed here, and they offer everything from a soup kitchen, to a woman's resource center, to an after school program for kids!  Talk about being the hands and feet of Christ; even without the Maple Tree I would want to be involved with this organization!!

Although I did not feel we were ready to take on a lease yet, I called him anyway (with all my doubting, I'm shocked my name isn't Thomas!!  See God's grace?!).  I told him about Maple Tree and the services we offer to cancer patients.  He quickly tells me that we would be a perfect fit for his building.  "Why", you ask?? Because he just so happens to have a fully-stocked fitness center, filled with approximately $200,000 worth of exercise equipment donated from the YMCA, sitting in his building, basically going unused at the moment...!!!!!!!!!  Are you kidding me????!!!!!!!! 

Two days later, I was standing on the second floor of the Life Enrichment Center, drooling as he showed me the rental space.  There is a free weight room, an aerobics studio (with suspended hardwood floors!), an assessment room, about 10 Precor treadmills (a.k.a. the "good" treadmills), two Nustep Trs Recumbents, bikes, elipticals, steppers, mats, roman chairs, benches, resist-a-balls, and a full cybex circuit.  This is all dork-speak for totally AWESOME stuff.  No, I really mean it....AWESOME!!!  It was just too good to be true.  Then came time to talk money.  The whole time we were meeting, I was silently throwing numbers around in my head...."maybe $XXX, or $XXX"...."we could afford $XXX"...."Well, if it's $XXX maybe I could sell something....like a kidney".  Being that he was a Christian and knew he was about to bless me, he grinned ear to ear as he told me what the rent would be.  Lets just say it is about what I would blow in one trip to Target.  I immediately started to cry.  Then I think I offered to pay more money (shhh, don't tell my husband!).

What a huge blessing.  What grace!  By removing the burden of rental space and equipment, we can now focus 100% on meeting the needs of our patients without being driven by the need for money.  The ones who cannot afford to pay don't have to!  The ones who don't have someone to sponsor their training don't need it!  The ones who lose their jobs because they missed too much work for treatemnt don't have to worry - they can still take a step toward improving their quality of life. 

Back in September, I felt the Lord telling me to care for His poor.  At the time I was very confused....I thought my "thing" was cancer.....I didn't get how it tied in with the poor.  Now I know....What grace.  It makes me want to cry.  Oh God, why are you so good???

"and God will meet all your needs according to His glorious riches in Christ Jesus" Philippians 4:19

Updates!

Okay, so I think we've already established that I'm not the most faithful blogger in the world....It has been about 5 months since I last posted! Wow!  That's like 10 years in facebook time!

So, what has been going on these last 5 months, you ask?  Well, let me just tell you, we've been busy!!  Great things are starting to happen!  Let me take you back to August, when I was making bows, bows, and more bows, in the hopes of raising $1500 to make chemotherapy care packages.  When I last posted, I think I had about $375 more to raise before reaching my goal by the end of the month.  Sounds like a lot of money to raise in just a little over a week's time, but I just knew that God was going to come through for us.  And that is exactly what happened.  A number of my facebook friends rallied and sent in donation after donation.  Then, on the last day of the month, a wonderful lady I work with approached me and asked me how much money I still needed before I reached my goal.  She wrote me a check for that exact amount right on the spot! And that is how 100 chemo care packages were made!! 


Then September came.  An oncologist I have been networking with sent me an email and told me that he had some patients who were interested in starting our nutrition service.  Unfortunately at this point in time we still did not have a space where we could meet with patients, so I wasn't sure what to do.  When I told him my dilemma, he generously offered to donate some office space in his building to us -- for FREE!!  On September 12, 2010 we began to offer nutrition counseling!  The first person to call us said that she was so excited when she learned of Maple Tree that she started to cry.


October brought much happiness to our family, as we welcomed our forth child into the world! Baby Henry was born on October 19.  We soon realized that having four children, ages 5 and under, creates a very busy and very LOUD house!!  But, but what a wonderful noise it is!  I wouldn't trade it for anything.  Of course, with the new addition, things slowed down with Maple Tree for a while.  I think I started coming back to reality sometime around mid-December, just in time to get ready for exercise training.  Unfortunately, the space donated to us in the oncologist office is not suitable for exercise training, so for now the plan is to train people in their home.  To be honest, it was not my first choice to do it this way.  I would much rather have a wonderful facility filled with the latest and greatest exercie equipment...However, the more I've gone out and talked to these patients, it seems like meeting people at their home is a great place to start.  We've had a few calls from individuals who were home-bound...Others who don't have a means of transportation... Still others who want ideas on how they can exercise in their homes after a long day of work.  In fact, I have received such positive feedback, that I am going to continue to offer this home-training service even after we do secure a rental space!  We officially began offering exercise training on January 2 of this year, and like I said, so far we have received a great response!


We have also started to come up with some creative ways that people can help support Maple Tree.  When I donate to a cause, I always want to know what my money is going to go towards...something tangible so I can say "I helped do that!".  So, we have created a system where people can donate towards something specific - like purchase one month of personal training for someone ($30), or buy a care package ($15).  That way, it will help ease the burden for someone who is fighting cancer and already has enough on their plate!  I can already see what a blessing it has been to those patients who have been sponsored. 



So, there is your 5-minute update of the status of Maple Tree!  There are a few other things I am working on, but I'm not quite ready to share them with the world.  I will say, however, that it has been an amazing week.  I really feel like God is moving!  It is so exciting for me to watch it all unfold.  Someone asked me earlier in the week if I wanted Maple Tree to be associated with the "medical" community or with the "non-profit" community.  At the time, I really didn't know how to answer that question.  Of course, the medical side is important, because we are helping people who are sick and their doctors will refer them to us.  On the other hand, I want people to know that we are not in this for personal financial gain, which makes promoting the non-profit side of things very important to me.  But, after much thought, I've decided that whether we are generalized more as a medical or non-profit establishment doesn't really matter to me.  The primary purpose of Maple Tree has always been to glorify God and to bring the hope of salvation to as many people as possible.  Of course, I want their time left on this earth to be as comfortable as possible, which is why I believe so strongtly in the exercise and nutrition counseling, but nothing is more important than the hope we have in Jesus!  So, whether we work with 1 patient or 200, that will always remain our cheif goal in this journey God has us on.  To HIM be the glory!!