A while back I posted about a particular book that was challenging me: Dangerous Surrender by Kay Warren. I often get excited about what I'm reading but, more often than not, I end up finishing it and setting it on the bookshelf. Not with this one. I passed it on to one of my BFF's who passed it on to her friend, who read it in a day and so on and so on and so on........

Which then resulted in a "book club/study group/coffee klatch" on Wednesday mornings.

After the four of us finished discussing the first chapter, one of the BFF's shared with us about a particular family she knows who lives on very little--by choice. They have three small children, live in a 2 bedroom house, own one car, the dad bikes to work in spite of the weather and they make a small pittance stretch for their monthly food budget. I can't even bring myself to write the amount as you would be astounded--and quite possibly ashamed. My friend made a suggestion that would be a small sacrifice to us but a huge blessing to this family: when dropping off outgrown clothes at our local kids' consignment store, apply our donations to this mom's account instead of our own. What a wonderful surprise she would have on her next clothes shopping visit. Done.

The following week I showed up with my Starbucks in hand ready to tackle Chapter 2. As we dive in, our same friend had another idea: Instead of us all stopping to get our fancy java, bring the money we would have spent on a latte and drink her fresh-brewed Folgers instead. At the end of our 11 weeks we'd ask God what to do with the accumulated cash. I was nominated to get out my glue stick and magazines and find my inner 17-year-old creativity. Here's the result: