I recently read about this project called “Light The World” which is a Christmas initiative encouraging people to serve others. It was originally started by the Mormon church but people all over the World and of all faiths are adopting it as a way to do acts of kindness for one another. The basic idea is simple: in celebration of advent, the first 25 days of December, each day you do an act that selflessly serves others.
What I most love about this idea is the spirit it invokes. Service, giving, and kindness. It has always been my belief that the old English proverb “kindness begets kindness” couldn’t be more true. There is nothing that inspires kindness more than when someone does something unexpectedly kind for you.
Just the other day, my dear friend Emily was traveling to Tanzania on what was to be a 48 hour journey. She was met with delay after delay and finally had just reached her breaking point, & went to a corner of the airport and just wept. Who could blame her? A very kind couple around the same age as her parents approached her and just kindly talked her through the situation and offered her a hug. Sometimes that’s all you need. Someone to reach out and take a moment to say, “I see you”, “I’ve been there”, “You and your feelings matter right now.”
Emily made a point to say that after that experience she was very inspired to remember what that lovely couple had done for her & be sure to return to favor someday if she ever found another “lost soul” in need.
And while hugs and encouragement are wonderful, there are other fantastic ways to serve this season. Volunteer at a soup kitchen or a food pantry, offer to read to the elderly at a nursing home or to children at your local library, stop in at your local ASPCA and see what their needs might be for the animals there. Sometimes an extra set of hands to clean a cage can make a HUGE difference in someone’s day.
But your acts don’t have to be big, grand gestures. Something as small as paying for the next person’s cup of coffee behind you in line can absolutely make a day. Or buying a gift card at Subway & asking the checkout person to give it to the busy Mom with her hands full so she doesn’t have to get today’s lunch.
Paying it forward can be a wonderful way to light the World with faith, hope, charity and love. “And of all these things, the greatest of these, is love”…and that is just good stuff.
"Just The Good Stuff" 