Stop, Drop & Help!

Good afternoon readers. I am so thankful that you are reading this and giving me your precious time. I hope your weekend was fabulous!

If you are a friend of mine, you know from speaking with me or Facebook newsfeed (sorry!) that I spent my weekend with family celebrating my son's 3rd birthday. This year I decided to do a low maintenance party for Edward. It was SO nice.   Here is what I did NOT do:

• Send out Invitations
• Pay for a venue
• Make a cake
• Stress out!

It was refreshing not putting myself in the usual high-pressure-of-having-a-perfect-party mode. Edward had fun and that's all that mattered!

Let's change gears a bit and rewind back to an hour before the party.  There were three stops we had to make before getting to the splash pad. We had to get...

1. Ice
2. Pizza
3. Balloons

After picking up our Little Caesars pizza's, we were finally on our way to stop #3!  I get so impatient at fun times like this, so I was anxious to knock out these stops.  After taking the exit, we couldn't help but notice a homeless man standing there holding a sign asking for food. As our car got closer to him, I remember reading the sign hoping that he was asking for something we could give him.

The light was about to turn green, so my husband and I had to make a quick decision on how to help this man. Kiel and I looked at each other and without speaking made an easy decision.  Pizza! We could help by giving him some of the pizza we picked up at our second stop!  Kiel jumped out of the car, grabbed 4 slices, grabbed some napkins and then jumped back in just in time to get onto HWY 181. All of this was in a 30 second time span. We drove off and headed to stop #3 with little smiles on our face.  I think I said something girly and sappy like "Aww, I'm glad we got to help." It felt good to help this person.

I have never helped a homeless person, but each time I see someone homeless, which is not often here, I want to help. I no longer think these things...

• He's drunk
• He's going to scheme me for money
• Lock the door
• He's lazy

The influence of my Counseling career and my relationship with God has given me more compassion for others. I instead think "He/she has a story".  We all do. 

If we would have both made assumptions about this person, we would've had 4 more slices of pizza in our car.  Although we didn't give him pizza for us to feel good about ourselves, I admit that it felt great to help someone in this kind of situation. I spend all of my day making sure my family is taken care of, so giving this person a meal just felt natural and right.

What are some ways you can lift someone up and make someone's day, week, or even year? I can't think of a better way for us to start off our week than by doing this.  We (myself included) need to stop focusing so much on our needs and instead look around for ways we can help. If we see signs to help we need to stop, drop what we are doing and help. This will only help ourselves. Have a great Monday!