Everyone can be great because anyone can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve. You don't even have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve... You only need a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love...
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On Christmas Eve, some 23 million people will pack themselves into shopping malls across the country in a last ditch effort to find the perfect gift for someone. This, according statistics compiled by the International Council of Shopping Centers in 2010.
I have nothing against shopping, or shopping centers, but something about that statistic seems obscene. As though we’ve lost all sense of what the holidays mean.
The true spirit of the holidays came early to Texas this year. It burned through us with the fires in Bastrop, opening our hearts, our homes and our wallets to help family, friends and strangers. It lit up the night with big-time concert fundraisers and neighborhood pass-the-hat bar-b-ques. Those flames couldn’t eclipse our white hot need to reach out with whatever we could offer to those in need.
We allowed our hearts to fill with grace; our souls, to be generated by love.
Let us not lose that momentum.
This holiday season, consider giving the gift of yourself. Your effort needn’t be big or showy or cost any money whatsoever. Do not worry that you don’t have “enough” to offer: Every little bit really does count. Remember the old saying: Many hands make light work. If your hands are all you can offer, be assured they are enough.
Let your children lead the way: their hearts, not yet jaded by life, are overflowing with love; their hands, still soft and tender, are eager to move.
The best gift we can give cannot be found amongst the 23 million at the mall, but in our hearts and in our hands: working together to make this world a better place.
May your holidays burn brightly with the fire of love — and may you pass it on.
Kim Pleticha is the Editor and Publisher of Parent:Wise.
Post new comment