Are you up for a challenge?

Back at the end of October I chased an internet rabbit trail over to Kingdom First Mom’s 30 Day Giving Challenge. It caught my attention, and as I read it further I realized this was something that I could not turn down. In a nutshell, the challenge was to do something charitable every day during the month of November.

I haven’t blogged about it yet because honestly? I was worried I wouldn’t make it a priority and I didn’t want to commit to it then fail. And another honestly? This blog is not a place where I talk about a lot of preachy things. I am most definitely not a preacher. And besides, there are waaaay better bloggers around Innernetville for you to visit and get your gospel on if you’re looking for some inspiration.

The most you’ll get from me are the ads for several of my favorite charities that have been over on the sidebar of this site since the beginning. Habitat for Humanity, Donors Choose and The Autism Society of Alabama are three worthy charities that I fully support.

But having a donation set up to auto pay from my bank account and actually being charitable everyday are two very different things. I know for me the little day to day charitable things are not so easy and can get lost in the shuffle of life. So I told myself, “Self, just keep your eyes open for giving opportunities everyday, and accept each one as it come.”

It took just three days into November for me to realize that opportunities were MORE THAN ABUNDANT. I would have no trouble fulfilling this challenge. It seemed that around every unexpected corner I would find another way to donate either time or money or just a quick prayer for someone in need. A few quick clicks led me to discover that Samaritan’s Purse had multiple dropoff locations for their Operation Christmas Child within a 10 mile radius of my house. Then I saw the canned food drive happening at G’s school, and I realized this was the perfect opportunity to teach Garrett about that whole benevolence thing. So each day we have cleaning out the pantry stockpile and donating some items to the food drive at school. Here is Garrett making his first donation.

Today the dropbox was not in the usual spot in the hallway. I searched for it and discovered there was another one at the front entrance to the church, which was not on our usual route into school everyday. After I dropped off today’s donation, I turned around to discover an Angel Tree behind me. I’ve never seen an Angel Tree before, but it didn’t take long to realize that all the names and ages of the people on the tree were people in need. I scanned over them and chose three angels.

One of the Angels I pulled from the tree was a lady named Faye. She’s 70 years old and her wish list consists of:
A church dress
cross your heart bra and underwear
cotton sheets and comforter

There were additional families asking for:
Milk (powdered), cooking oil, flour, meal, cereal, laundry detergent, bath soap, toilet tissue, canned food, toiletries, etc.

The one that got me? Three year old Drake who asked for a toy train.

My heart was breaking reading all of the requests on the tree. People asked for the most basic things and a few toys for the kids. It seriously hurts my heart to know how blessed I am when others don’t have enough to buy just the most basic of necessities.

And so my challenge suddenly became easier. There is not even a question for me for me to say yes to help someone who needs food to survive or a blanket to keep warm this winter.

So today I want to challenge all of you to get in on this action and help someone in your community everyday this month. It’s not too late. Just start somewhere. Bring in the mail and paper for your elderly neighbor. Rake her leaves. Drop off some old clothes at Goodwill. Toss some change in the Salvation Army bins that will inevitably be ringing soon.

I bet if you keep your eyes open, you will see plenty of opportunities around you as well.

Thanks for listening. 🙂