Note: This page and its We Love Pastors website are now inactive and archived.

The First Gift

Blossom Bear accompanied us on that first LOVEbearsALL bear ministry trip.

On one of our trips east we stopped at Charley's cousins' home in East Texas to visit. We had talked with her about the bears but we did not know for sure that she had any available. When we arrived, we visited for a few minutes and then Ruby brought a bear made of John Deere tractor material and gave it to Charley. I immediately called it his “Johnny Bear.” Charley was very tired (he was dealing with kidney stones at the time) and he placed the bear on his stomach and leaned back in the recliner. He fell asleep and slept for a couple of hours. Ruby also brought a bear made out of material that was white with pictures of cows. This was my “Moo Bear.” We have our own bears! We have pictures of our bears in the LOVEbearsALL story section.

Then Ruby brought a bag of bears, and I went through the bag holding each one and feeling the soft material and the stuffing. Each one is very unique and special and destined for that one certain person that Father has chosen to receive it. We bagged all the bears in Wal-Mart bags and loaded them into the trunk. There were 56 bears and they fit into every nook and cranny of the trunk, molding to the space available. We prayed over the bears, that the Lord would give us direction as to where to share them.

When we reached Virginia and got settled in our small cottage where we would stay for a few days, we unloaded our luggage and left the bears in the trunk. We met with the pastor in the area we had come to visit and we took a bag of bears out of the trunk and showed them to him. The friend that accompanied us also saw the bears in the bag. At the end of our visit, we placed the bears back in the bag and put them in the trunk. Upon our return to our little cottage, we visited with our friend until about 10. During that visit I told her that she was also supposed to get a bear. She said that it seemed strange for a woman her age to get a bear. I told her that Father wanted her to have a bear, for her husband had died only a month before and she was grieving his death. I went out to the car and took a bag of bears from the trunk and brought it in the house. When I opened the bag, she looked at the bears and then asked where the bag was that we had opened at the pastor's home. You see she had already spotted her bear.

I put the bears back in the bag and went back out to the car to bring in the other bag. She immediately pulled her bear out of the bag. She held on to the leg and began to stroke it.

Father, thank You for the unction that one of those bears was for her and she knew which one it was. It was so awesome to watch her touch the bear and for me to tell her that it is a Gift from the Lord. She was in tears. She cries very easily right now and that is OK — it is a healing time for her.

She went home soon after that. The next evening we went to supper with our friend and this is what she told us: “When I got home, I put the bear on my bed, and it stayed on my bed as I slept last night. Last night was the first good night's sleep I have had since my husband died.”

We rejoiced and praised the Lord for the ministry of comfort, sleep and peace that she was afforded due to the prayer and love placed in that bear. When the bears are made, the people who make them pray over them. Charley's cousin prays over them and we pray over them when we receive them. Our Father blesses and uses these bears to His honor and glory.

Note: This page and its We Love Pastors website are now inactive and archived.