28 Days of Kindness

A couple of weeks ago my mother lost her best friend of thirty years.  Lisa was such a close part of my family that I considered her my aunt and even called her Aunt EC.  She was there when I spoke my first word, she was there when I got married, and she had been there for my mom to brag to at all the moments in between.  She wasn't someone I saw often but she was someone who had been a part of my life since I was born.  It is such a different feeling of sadness when someone chooses to leave.  In the days following her death I would find myself reading her Facebook page and I kept seeing the same types of posts.  People wrote on her page how she brightened their day when they saw her, how much they enjoyed their conversations with her, how much her smile meant to them.  This got me thinking about how quickly I, and others, voice our opinions when they are negative but yet we choose to keep positive words and comments to ourselves.  Most people do not going around saying, "Thank you for being my friend." Perhaps we should.  Perhaps if we were as quick to lift people up as we are to bring them down more people would know just how loved they are.  I don't know if these posts would have changed Lisa's life but I hope she is able to read them from Heaven.

After Lisa's death, I made it a point to choose my words a little more carefully.  I began to see the word kindness daily in the devotions and quotes I read.  I began to think about what it really means to be kind and I decided to do something to spread a little bit of kindness in the world.  That's when I came up with the idea to do 28 Days of Kindness in the month of February.  I had a lot of ideas for the month but I ended up doing something that scares me - just going with the flow.  I am embracing each day without a planned act of kindness and I am looking for ordinary chances to spread kindness.

The great thing about life is that it is never too late to learn and grow.  I can't change anything I have done in the past but I am learning and growing everyday and can only hope to leave behind people who love me when it is my time to go home.  I hope I have influenced people and left my mark in a positive light.  And if I have yet to leave a positive mark, perhaps I will do so in the next 28 days and all the days following. 

I want to challenge you to take on your own 28 Days of Kindness. 

Let's Blog - Round 3

Well, I'm back for round three of blogging.  :)  I started this blog to keep track of milestones and fun events in our lives but eventually it became more about comparing myself as a mother and feeling inadequate.  I would read posts written so beautifully by mothers about savoring the little moments with their children and details about their day and I would begin to question myself as a mother.  I now know that those feelings did not come from other people and their blogs but from feelings and doubts within myself.  Those feelings have diminished some since I have become more comfortable in my own skin as a mother and embraced the chaos.  I realize that there is beauty in my imperfections - imperfections as a mother and a woman.  I decided to brush off this old blog and start anew in an effort to show those imperfections.  Today I have 18 followers.  I doubt half of them will read this post but this time I am writing for myself, not for them, and that is today's success.