#ElevatedFriday, September 15th, 2017

Happy #ElevatedFriday! Today’s uplifting news comes from the small town of Hayden, Idaho. A local second grade student, Amiah Van Hill, started a lemonade stand. Sounds fairly common, right? Not so fast. Amiah has a purpose that should give us all pause. She is using her lemonade stand to raise money to pay off other students’ lunch debt. How did she choose which students to help? She didn’t. She is working to pay off the debt for every student in the Coeur d’Alene Public School District. Through the use of her lemonade stand and a corresponding GoFundMe campaign, she is focused on raising $23,000. Through her efforts, she is giving relief to families across her community who struggle to feed their children – Amiah’s classmates.

Jesus teaches us that following Him means bearing the burdens of others. Often, the way many of us practice this concept is by bearing the burdens of those closest to us – friends and family—but when it comes to bearing the burdens of those we don’t know, we settle for maybe a prayer or Facebook post. Jesus set the standard for bearing other’s burdens when he hung upon the cross for us. As Jesus suffered the cross for all mankind, so also the cross we bear must not be only our own. In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he lays this out in clear language: “Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” Little Amiah Van Hill of Hayden, Idaho is bearing the burdens of adults and entire families in her community so that her classmates may attend school and eat lunch without the worry of debt. Pray today for the courage to meet the needs of your community and endurance not to stop until those burdens are laying at the feet of Jesus.

“Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.” – Galatians 6:2 ESV

Original Article:

http://bit.ly/2xBMxI4