I recently traveled with my parents on a cross-country road trip to Sodus Point, New York. It is apple country and nowhere near New York City.
The 36-hour roundtrip drive gave us ample opportunities to talk about lots of topics. One conversation with my mom turned to random acts of kindness. She was really touched by someone helping her out in the grocery store. She needed 10 items to get a sale price, the gentleman behind her asked to put his items with hers and then proceeded to pay for the entire sale. My mom was stunned.
She had the money but he wanted to do this for her. It made her feel odd. She is one to do acts of kindness for others but it didn’t feel right having someone do this for her. A good friend once told me that Grace is doing for others but True Grace is allowing others to do for us. You must give people the opportunity to commit random acts of kindness.
In researching for this column I looked for stories of random acts of kindness. One in particular touched me…a bride decided to ask her guests to commit random acts of kindness and then post them on her hash tag so she could see the ripple effect of their actions. These guests did amazing acts to honor their friend’s request. It was a beautiful way to celebrate the love this
Taste of Home columnist Sandy (Anderson) Holthaus lives on a farm in South Haven, MN with her husband, Michael, and their children Zoe, Jack and Ben. Her heart remains on the North Shore where she grew up with her parents, Art and LaVonne Anderson of Schroeder. She enjoys writing about her childhood and mixes memories with delicious helpings of home-style recipes.
couple had found and to share this feeling with others.
In this theme I found a game called “Sneaky Cards”… when you buy the deck you register it online. Once you start doing the acts of kindness challenges and giving the cards to others they will hopefully go online and update your deck so you can see where it has gone and how the game has continued to spread these acts of kindness. The game isn’t expensive and I am planning to give a deck to each of my children for their birthdays this year.
At Christmas I thought it would be fun to share some of the stories the game had generated. Of course you don’t need a game to start acting kinder to one another…just do it. We hear a lot of bad news and depressing stories of people treating each other badly; maybe just changing your one small corner of the world will spread and together we can make a difference.
You cannot do a kindness too soon,
for you never know how soon it will
be too late.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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