22/08/2012
Random Acts and A Blessed Birthday Buzz*
Every year birthday’s roll around and every year they pass by. Some are a gathering of family and friends, some are a day of spoiling with presents, some are filled with adventures and outings, some are celebrated with parties and indulgence, some are simply skipped over uneventfully. They all come, and they all go. I have a hard time remembering most of those past birthday’s …. Don’t you?
However, I have a feeling I will remember this birthday for many years to come. I am still buzzing from it…
I am blessed by a wonderful life, truly. I have a fabulous family and wonderful cherished friends, time has proven to me their love, through their acceptance, loyalty, compassion, help in times of need, encouragement, forgiveness, apologies, companionship and the like. I have Health, Faith, & Love, and I have many more ‘things’ than I will ever need.. I could go on…but I know ‘Gag’ right! 😉
So, God guided me to give back….
After reading this post by a fellow blogger, I was inspired, actually that is an understatement. Seeing this list gave me heaps of ideas of how to share joy and kindness with people from my community.
I sent an email to family and friends asking for them not to buy me a gift this year. I told them I would be spending the day doing Random Acts of Kindness and if they wanted to get involved then great, just know I am passing on all gifts to others.
My Husband and I and our 2 gorgeous girls spent an amazing day together. We planned enough Random Acts to cover one for each year of my life but it ended up being more, thanks to all those who contributed.
We started the day with a family prayer thanking the Lord for His abundance of love and blessings to us, and asking for His guidance to those who needed these acts of kindness the most.
With that we were out the door….
I can’t even begin to describe the joy that came from seeing the smiles on peoples faces and the sparkle in their eyes, although some we hid from (like the man who’s fuel we paid for).
I loved the look on the face of the gorgeous teenage boy who was more than shocked by this crazy lady running up to give him an Itunes voucher, we chased him because he raised his hand in thanks as we stopped the car to let him cross at a zebra crossing. I was overcome by his unexpected manners.
The volunteers at the Salvation Army enjoyed their muffins perfectly timed for morning tea, along with bags of donated books, clothes and shoes.
The police lady asked “Are you sure?’ when I handed her a box of warm doughnuts along with my gratitude for her service to others.
The lady at the ‘Information Counter’ in the local shopping centre had the most amazing sparkle in her eyes for receiving a simple coffee voucher and a thank you for her constant helpfulness.
We became hungry to find that sparkle in the eyes of others, it was so addictive!Â
We gave a Coffee Club voucher to every security guard and cleaner we saw, thanking them for keeping our suburb a nicer place to live.
We gave out gift cards to people doing their weekly shopping and surprised small children with helium balloons.
We gave a beautiful lady a voucher to buy food for her seeing eye dog and I was not prepared for her reaction “You have no idea how much I needed to hear that today” she said and hugged me tight for a very long time, I left her with tears streaming down my cheeks.
It warmed our hearts to watch our children explaining their gift to all these random people, they thoroughly enjoyed the day as well, we are all still buzzing.
Our motive was simple…
“God has blessed us so much in our life so we want to pass that on to others. You are special and appreciated and loved from above. May God bless you as much as He has us!”
There were other acts, I won’t explain them all, If you would like more ideas please visit this post. I just wanted to share that it was a truly wonderful day, one which I wasn’t planning on writing about, I just can’t shake the hope that someone else may join me in feeling this much love and joy! I hope you are inspired to try this for yourselves. You will never regret it! Please share your Random Acts stories with me in the comments section, I would love to hear of them.
Opening presents is nice and all, and indulging on food and drink and a good time is fun, but I tell you this, it doesn’t even come close to how wonderful it felt to engage lovingly with others, and to give, and to be thankful! God is So Good! Praise His Name!
Inner Angels & Enemies 