Kindness In Motion

A Random Act of Kindness Can Change Your Day

Recently, I was the recipient of a random act of kindness when someone I barely know realized I was having a difficult time with something and offered her support. At the time, I didn’t realize what an impact this simple act of kindness would have on my day. It also changed my perspective on the problem I was having. Suddenly, things were not as bad as they seemed.

I started thinking about ways I could make someone’s day a little brighter. For me, it all started with my family. What could I do to show kindness and to help them have a better day?

My first thought was directed to my husband. We all know the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach so I planned to make one of his favorite dinners. I could tell he enjoyed that after a long day at work.

For my kids it’s all about the cookies. When my daughter got home from school, she and my 2 year old had a fresh homemade batch of cookies waiting with a glass of milk. Cookies also seem to draw the neighborhood kids, which is a lot of fun, too.

For as much as I enjoy providing random acts of kindness for my family, I was thinking about my neighbors, friends and total strangers. What were some things I could do to show my kindness to others? Here is a list of ideas I came up with:

* Smile and say “hello” as you pass someone on the street.
* Thank the people who provide endless hours of service without a lot of recognition, like grocery clerks, librarians, school administrators and PTA board members.
* Offer to let someone with fewer items check out in front of you.
* Call a friend or neighbor out of the blue and offer to baby-sit.
* Compliment a stranger on something positive about them.

I would like to encourage all of you to “look up” and see what you can do to make someone’s day a little brighter …

Generous child sets example for all us at Christmas

Kids can be amazingly kind. Take the daughter in a family of five who used her meager $20 gift allotment to help someone she didn’t even know. Salvation Army Food Pantry Coordinator Jill Brink recently received a letter from the girl’s father, along with a donation for $120, describing how it happened.

The family was facing a grim Christmas last year, so the father took the children to the local mall and gave each child $20 with which to purchase four gifts at no more than $5 each.

When the family reunited, they were all laughing and talking — all except this 8-year-old girl, who appeared very serious and was carrying a small, flat bag that contained only four, 50-cent candy bars.

Apparently while looking for gifts, she had come across one of the Salvation Army’s “Giving Trees,” which carry cards describing real local children for whom the agency is seeking “angels” to buy their presents. One card featured a little girl who asked for a doll and a hairbrush. The young shopper made the purchases and returned them with the card to the Salvation Army booth in the mall. Then she bought candy with the money she had left.

“This girl felt she was so richly blessed that she gave to another girl who was less fortunate,” Brink said.

That is the kind of holiday spirit that prompts generous friends and area residents to make gifts to the Pocono Record’s annual Toys for Joy campaign. We collect the donations between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and then turn over the proceeds to the Salvation Army and the Pleasant Valley Ecumenical Network, which buy and distribute the gifts to needy children all around Monroe County.

You, too, can brighten a child’s holiday. Send your check to: Toys for Joy, Pocono Record, 511 Lenox St., Stroudsburg, PA 18360.

Video: Random Act’s Of Kindness

Feel inspired, take the first step. It is within you, it is within us all.

Guardian Angels

If you enjoy Christian humor this website is worth checking out www.reverendfun.com

Kindness requires Action

As always, Rick publishes excellent articles and practical ways we can demonstrate love and kindness.

Love is an action
by Rick Warren

Dear children, let us stop just saying we love each other; let us really show it by our actions.

1 John 3:18 (NLT)

Love is something you do. You show love by what you do, not just by what you feel.

Love is more than attraction and more than arousal. It’s also more than sentimentality, like so many of today’s songs suggest. By this standard, is love dead when the emotion is gone? No, not at all. Because love is an action; love is a behavior.

Kindness dates back thousands of years

Kindness is an act that dates back thousands of years.

Here is some scripture Galatians 5:22-23. The NIV Bible lists the fruit as love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

1. Genesis 19:19
Your servant has found favor in your eyes, and you have shown great kindness to me in sparing my life. But I can’t flee to the mountains; this disaster will overtake me, and I’ll die.
2. Genesis 21:23
Now swear to me here before God that you will not deal falsely with me or my children or my descendants. Show to me and the country where you are living as an alien the same kindness I have shown to you.”
3. Genesis 24:12
Then he prayed, “O LORD, God of my master Abraham, give me success today, and show kindness to my master Abraham.

Spread Happiness like Dancin Matt

This video is a classic and a great marketing tool… I cannot help but think of the smiles this video has generated to those that watch it and to those that were a part of it… great tune too!.

If you have been following Matt and his antics you know he travels the globe and video records his unique “dance” style to share with the world. Do something fun and pass on some Sun!

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Pay it Foward

It is great to see Hollywood get behind the Pay it Forward campaign. The Kindness in Motion Team is always looking for ways to encourage others to do just that, Pay it Forward. Consider treating a friend to this Movie, you never know what seed it will plant or the good it will do.

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We hold the Sun in our hands …

To the Kindness in Motion Team this image literally means we hold the Sun in our hands and if we choose we can pass on some Sun to another person each and everyday. Make today the day you pass on some Sun to an anonymous recipient.

Pay for someone’s coffee, toll fee or lunch in a fast food drive thru. Deliver some baking or cut someone’s lawn. Remember, YOUR ripple can start a WAVE ~

Start by downloading some smile cards and performing an anonymous act of kindness, after completing your kind act leave the card which will hopefully encourage the recipient to do same.

Pass on some SUN!!!!

Download Free Kindness Cards

Kindness – what goes around comes around!

We know this principle because it’s true in every area of life. Whatever we sow, we are going to reap:

· If we’re judgmental, then others will judge us.

· If we’re critical all the time, then others will criticize us.

· If we gossip about others, then others will gossip about us.

· If we’re jealous, then others will be jealous of us.

Whatever we give out, we’re going to get back. As the old saying goes, “What goes around, comes around.”

On the other hand, we can sow the positive. If we sow encouragement, affirmation, and kindness, others will give back encouragement, affirmation, and kindness. If we sow love, people are going to sow love back to us. God wired the universe that way.

And, we always get back more than we give. Always! This great excerpt was from Rick Warren at Purpose Driven Life.

Download your free kindness smile cards today! Your ripple can start a WAVE ~