On the 9th Day of Christmas

The 9^th Day of Christmas…

Random Acts of Kindness

A couple years ago, I was in the Starbuck’s drive through lane waiting to get a coffee.  I was about the 6^th or 7^th car back.  When I got up to the window, I handed the lady a $20 dollar bill  to pay for my coffee, the lady at the window, said the person in front of you paid $4.00 toward your coffee this morning.  I was surprised and responded with “really?”.  So as she handed me back the change I’d given her, I handed her $4.00 and said do the same for the car behind me.  She laughed and said, “this has been going on all morning, isn’t it just amazing?”

As I drove the rest of the way to work, I couldn’t help but think of what a chain reaction the first person that morning had started.  I felt so uplifted and my heart was light and it truly made the rest of my day.

My last post, I talked about giving and joy and it reminded me of the Starbuck’s incident.  Each year, I try to do something like that.  So I thought wouldn’t it great if we could think of lots of ways to do “random acts of kindness during the Christmas season, like taking a few extra seconds and letting a car in front of you or if you see someone behind you looking for a parking spot and you drive past the first one you see and maybe you find one farther away but as you are walking the extra distance, think of how good it made you feel to do something random for someone you don’t know and will get no “thank you” for.

I’d love it if you would post a comment with your ideas for random acts of kindness.  I’ll collect them and after the first of the year, I will list them all in a post to inspire us to start the New Year the same way, practicing “random acts of kindness”.  The definition of “random” is happening or chosen without method or conscious decision…haphazard…by chance.
 

 I decided to post a picture of my church here because my church is so awesome.  Everyone in our church has such a community spirit, in fact my Pastor preached on that for several weeks.  I believe the people in our church practice random acts of kindness nearly every day because they really care about people.