"How can I help?"

You know how when someone you know and love is sick or has a trial in their life, one of the things we ask is "How can I help"?  I once learned a great lesson from a friend of mine who told me how I could help her.  I felt so trusted, needed, and included to be doing what was really helpful in her time of need.

 But sometimes, even saying what is helpful doesn't come easily.  Even the expressing of a need is overwhelming.  Right now, my lifelong friend Christina's baby Maximus is in the burn unit at the U of U hospital.  Caring for him is a 24-hour a day job.  How to pay the hospital bills must be way up there on their burden list.   The other night I was out to dinner with some of my friends and we started talking about how if all the people who wanted to help put their money together, it might make a difference to Max and his family.  If you would like to help in this way; please email our friend Heather at boycesensei{at}yahoo{dot}com. ps. Christina is one of the best writers I have ever known. She blogs about Maximus' experiences here.

36 Random Acts of Kindness

Understatement: I rarely post. I am even hesitant about posting now, but the whole reason for this post was inspired by others spreading the news about Random Acts of Kindness (this week is RAK week). I am so glad she posted about the random acts of kindness she did to celebrate her birthday. You have probably heard of the Love Languages. I have known for a while that mine is "service" so when I read about how Robyn celebrated her birthday, it resonated with me and I knew I wanted to try it. My birthday had just passed, so my family was probably more willing than normal to go along with this idea.

We decided to do 36 Random Acts of Kindness to celebrate me turning 36. To document what we did (and maybe inspire someone else) We:

left 5 nice notes on cars parked at the park-n-ride

gave 7 kids in a restaurant quarters for the little toy vending machines as they left (the kids loved this one)

gave 6 people bottles of water at the driving range

gave 2 thank you notes to the cashiers at a fast food restaurant

paid for the car behind us in the drive-thru (so fun to see her surprised reaction as we drove away)

gave 2 ladies in a nursing home some fuzzy socks and visited with them

bought a WalMart gift card and gave it to a woman checking out to help pay for her groceries

gave 12+ people candy bars while they were waiting for Trax (lots of smiles in return)

= 36 random acts of kindness

It may not sound like it, but it was fairly easy. Beforehand we wrote down some ideas that we thought would be fun and said a prayer in hopes that we would be guided to someone who needed a little pick-me-up. Then we put some note paper and water bottles in the car and started driving. We just sort of decided what to do as we went. The best part was the feeling between the members of our little family. The kids kept saying; "this is so fun!". Everyone was so kind to one another and the sweetness lasted into the next day. The kids wrote nice notes for the other family members, they were more patient with each other, they were also more willing to help out at home (it was amazing how much of an effect it had on us). Cam even said he wanted to do this for his next birthday since it was so fun. My birthday tradition is born... In my excitement about all of this, I found the inspiration for the girl who inspired me. Hopefully it just keeps going and going...