Be The Blessing

READY8 “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” ~ Acts 20:35 NIV

AIM8 I’ve been making some observations and thinking lately. That could be scary, I know! Everywhere I go I am faced with the huge amount of need in our world. I pass the Salvation Army red buckets on my way into several stores. Cashiers ask me if I want to donate extra money to buy Toys For Tots, coffee for the Military or groceries for the Food Bank. At the mall, there are donation boxes for Coats for Kids, ornament tags for the Angel Tree and gift wrapping services for various nonprofit organizations and churches. It is frighteningly overwhelming.

The thing that really gets me is that this ‘need’ in our world lives right in our very own communities. All you have to do is just look behind you in the grocery line, in the cubicle beside you at work, across the pump at the gas station or in the pew behind you at church. Just because there are organizations working to help provide necessities to those who are less fortunate on a larger scale via the public eye, does not mean that those who are closest to you don’t have needs too. Maybe they have houses and clothes and jobs…but are they dealing with addictions, living paycheck to paycheck or coping with relationship issues?

So what, Lori? What does that mean to me? What it means is that each one of us can help make a difference in our world, right in the community of people we know. Helping fulfill the ‘need’ doesn’t have to be overwhelming. All you have to do is make a choice each day to “Be The Blessing” to someone. Dear friends of mine adopted “Be The Blessing” as their family mission statement in order to help teach their children how to make a difference in the lives of others and how to become better people themselves. Being the blessing can be something as simple as taking a sick friend some chicken noodle soup or leaving an extra bag of groceries at the home of a working mother. You could offer to babysit free for your married friends so they can have a date night together. Maybe this year instead of buying another sweater for someone who has everything, you decide to donate that money to a special charity in that person’s name. The options to “Be The Blessing” are endless. I encourage you to get your family involved too. Ask your children or your relatives how you can all “Be The Blessing” together. I can assure you, you’ll feel amazing, you’ll teach an incredible lesson and you’ll be helping change the outlook in someone else’s life.

Remember, it’s not the size of the blessing that matters. Every small effort to help someone else makes a BIG difference. Just do it!

Check out http://www.betheblessing.com/ for more information about this incredible movement. Thank you to the Figaretti family for their inspiration and determination to change our world one blessing at a time!

FIRE!8 Pay for the order of the person behind you in the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant or the check out in the grocery store. Enjoy the giddy feeling of knowing you just blessed someone’s day!

Be Excellent!
Lori