Say Please and Thank You

It's the little things that sometimes count, like saying thank you or please and we often forget!

A three year old said please to me today and I said "I love how you just said please" she smiled at me and said "I love saying please it makes people smile!" From the mouths of babes

40 Acts

40acts is a campaign from Stewardship that encourages you to do Lent generously.

Lent is usually about 'giving stuff up', isn't it? What if you could add something transformational to the traditional?

What if you could give up chocolate and give the money to your favourite charity? What if you could turn the TV off and spend more time helping your neighbour? What if your Lent, this year, was a preparation for a lifetime of big-heartedness?

So consider 40 Acts this Lent

Someones Child

Mission Sew

I have a friend who goes to Gambia to work with a school, many of the children have uniforms in disrepair. She once mentioned that she would like to sit and sew buttons on! She was just about to go on another trip and I got inspiration from Emergency Kits post to make a little sewing kit for her with what she needed.

And I enlisted the help of four and six year old, which made it a super fun make!

Do it anyway

little things....

Emergency Kits

I saw these wonderful little packs on Second Chance Susan. Making little emergency packs for friends with things that are relevant to that person relating to something that is relevant to them. People will really know you care if it is relevant to them.

Facebook Someone

Social Media has power to wreck people and we see story in the media of how social media but in particular is used to bully, intimidate or cause hurt to another person. But remember also the flip side, Facebook can be used just as effectively to build people up, and let them know that someone cares about them.

Send a message to someone you haven't seen or spoken to in a while, someone who you know is a bit down or just to say "I love you" to someone you see everyday! Your small action can make a big impact on someones day. 

Give what a person needs

An unlikely source of a quote, Joss Whedon - TV screen writer with accolades such as Buffy under his belt. However I think it is a fabulous quote and something that comes up at Christmas time and for myself when I am out and about in the sales, when shopping all too often becomes about wants rather than need!

But I would say that in meeting someones needs we usually address their wants too, or at least go so way to doing so. It is like the beggar in Acts 3 who wanted money (he did need this but there was actually a far greater need) but instead Peter in the name of Jesus performed a miracle and the man walked again! (giving him what he really needed, for the man did not just need money to survive he also needed to belong and in that time being disabled would likely have precluded him from many social situations including the temple which is why he would have been sitting by the gates).

So when looking to offer kindness consider, what does this person really need? It could be as simple as

• My time
• Acceptance
• Patience
• Understanding
• A listening ear
• To know that they are in your thoughts (a text, a phone call, a card)
• A smile
• Being let out in the traffic jam (you don't know where they need to get to or what a bad day they are having)

Just think about what can I do to meet this person's need- do to others as you'd have them do to you in that situation!

Give away a book

Give a book that was an inspiration to you to a friend or someone you know, maybe write in the front why you like the book or why you are sharing it. Encourage them to pass it on when they have read it!

A perfect day

"You can't live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you." John Wooden. 

Kindess is...

Simple Acts of Kindness

I have just mentioned this wonderful book in my first post, but I can't reiterate enough what a wonderful book it is.

Make the world a better place...

Hello, first blog on "Action of Love". I'm gonna start with why this has come about.

So on Saturday 31st Dec 2011, I read a tweet from @lovLikeJesus quoting Mother Teresa "“Every time you smile at someone, it is an action of love, a gift to that person, a beautiful thing.”

This morning in church I received a note (as did everyone) saying this

"New year revolution 2012
This year, with Gods help, what can I do to bring Good news and make the world a better place?"

I came home and started to tidy my very messy room and got distracted by a wonderful book I have read and re-read "Simple Acts of Kindness" by Terri Green. And then I was sorting bags and found a last years Christmas present I forgot to give and it was a calendar (well done me!) thankfully it was an encouragement calendar

And then I opened it and read what's in the photo at the start of the post.

So here we are, I decided God was trying to put me to action. I am one single person and so are you, and we so often try to do "good things" and so often we think we should but put it off, just don't have the time, the moment passes...etc. etc. and there are so many things we can do and they don't even take any time or can take all the time in the world.

I am going to use this blog to post ideas of small or large things I could or you could do to show someone that you love them, that you care or even more poignantly that "We love because he first loved us." (1 John 4:19)