Generousity

Be generous.

 Give.

Love.

 At church we are currently working through this series...Generous.

It's really been moving me lately, like, seriously! I LOVE to give!! I am so much more of a giver than receiver. Now, don't get me wrong I thoroughly love presents of all kinds, but something really warms my heart when I GIVE someone a gift! That might be partly why Christmas time is my favorite time of the year... Everyone joins the giving party!

This generosity "bug" is everywhere... Just last night I saw something on national news about people paying it forward. They were giving! It was about a phenomenon that is sweeping our nation, people paying for others food orders in the drive-thru line. 

For those who don't live here in the great city, Birmingham, and don't know about COTH (Church of the Highlands) let me explain something for ya. Our pastor pushes this one thing year round and that's to perform random acts of kindness across our city and state. We give out these card...

Those. :) And we leave these cards for people after we've performed a random act of kindness for them. You could pay for their meal, their coffee, leave them a huge tip at your table, the ideas are limitless! These cards are literally everywhere in this city, especially this time of year!

I LOVE THESE CARDS!!! They warm my heart!!!

So, this series at church is seriously moving me to start really going the extra mile, where I can and start acting out some super acts of random kindness for people! Within the first service I was scribbling down some ideas to do. I really want to wait till after Halloween for a lot of them... My first one that came to mind that I really want to do is to bake some cookies and brownies (I want to make like a couple tray fulls) and I'm going to go drop them off in a hospital waiting area with some of these cards! I'm not talking about, like, the ones for people who are just in there for a "mild" something (I don't really think anything's mild when in the hospital, though), but for those people who have someone that may not last the week. The families in the ICU waiting rooms and the burn centers.... the ones who NEED all the uplifting and prayer they can get!

My mom did this when I was a kid as well and it's really stuck with me. I'm going to do this! I can't wait, I get excited just talking about it!!

If you're interested in checking out the "Generous" series with Church of the Highlands please, please do!!! You can watch all the messages so far here: Generous Series

I challenge you to do the same! To go out and perform random acts of kindness all across your city this holiday season! You don't have to do anything huge... Just buy someone's coffee that's in line behind you! That's all it takes! You'll feel amazing and you'll have made that person's day. :)

Seriously... Try it just once if you haven't ever. There are so many other people out there that are struggling and need help and are worse off than others... Doing things like this makes me remember that and makes me even more grateful for all that I have!

Leave someone some love. :)

-Stephanie