Tuesday, December 3, 2013

ONE Thing: A Mission to Spread Hope, Peace, Joy and Love

For several years now, I have been participating in a Bible study group at my church with several other wonderful ladies.  We have shared laughter and tears, joy and sadness together.  They are some of my best friends and our weekly meetings are a time of re-centering and inspiration for me.

We met earlier this week and began our advent study.  We are using a book called The Uncluttered Heart: Making Room for God During Advent and Christmas by Beth Richardson.  The focus of our study was HOPE.  Over the next weeks we will also talk about peace, joy, and love.  These four - hope, peace, joy, and love - are the traditional tenants of the Christian Advent wreath.

As we discussed hope - finding hope; who needs hope; and how we can share hope - the women in the group, all mothers, expressed an interest in helping their families to not get so caught up in the craziness and commercialism that often overcomes us during this time of the year.  We all wanted to find ways to help our families and others around us get back to the true meaning of the season.

The thing is, we are all so busy, we often talk about doing this or doing that, but then it never happens.  Admittedly, I'm as guilty of it as the next person. Try as we may to avoid it, we still get overwhelmed by the shopping, partying, feasting, and celebrating.  We are bombarded with ideas for helping others, but we simply cannot do it all.  Therefore, it becomes another thing on our already unachievable list and, eventually, falls off the radar.

So, here's what I'm going to do.  I am going to choose ONE thing and commit to doing it.  I'm going to choose ONE thing that will fit my family's schedule; ONE thing that will not stress me out; ONE thing that will be meaningful to my kids; ONE thing that will be meaningful to me; ONE thing that will spread hope, peace, joy and love.  And, then, we're going to DO IT!!

Will you join me????

I sending you away today with a mission.  I want you and your family to to ONE thing.

EVERYONE can participate.  It doesn't matter whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, some other holiday, or nothing at all.  Hanukkah is about celebrating a miracle and Kwanzaa is about community.  If you are not religious in anyway, I'm sure you could still use a little extra happiness, right??  The point of this "exercise" is all of those things - giving someone a little miracle; fostering a sense of community; being happy and sharing happiness; spreading hope, peace, joy, and love.  I will venture to guess that everyone who does even ONE simple thing will not only fill someone else with joy, but will be filled with joy themselves as well.  And if my family does ONE thing, then your family does ONE more thing, and another family does even ONE more thing, and so on and so forth - it will add up to LOTS  OF THINGS.  If you don't have a lot of change to spare, then do something that doesn't cost any money.  If you don't have a lot of time to spare, do something that won't take long.  Whatever will work for you - just do ONE thing!

I know this idea isn't anything new and it's been done before.  In my opinion, though, there can never be too much kindness, or joy, or love, or happiness.  So I ask again. . . .

Will you join me????

Here's how it will work:
  1. For today's Tuesday Ten, I am giving you a list of ten simple acts of kindness you could do to spread some hope and joy.  You are not limited to these ideas.  If none of these strike your fancy, be creative and choose your own activity!  (I'm going to share more tomorrow and I would love for you to share your ideas in a comment below, too!)
  2. Commit to ONE activity and do it between now and Dec. 17.  Take pictures if you can and document what you do.  Talk with your family about why you are doing it and how it made everyone feel - the doers and the recipients. 
  3. Share this post!!  Get others involved by sharing this post on Facebook, Twitter, or via email.  The more the merrier!!!  If you are a blogger, feel free to write your own post and get your readers involved too!! (You can add the button below to your post.)  Tweet it with #justdoONEthing.  My goal is to have at least 50 people link up or share in comments on Dec. 18.  That's pretty ambitious for my little blog, so I need your help!
  4. On December 18, come back here and SHARE! If you are a blogger, do a post and link it up.  If you are not a blogger, you can come leave a comment about what you did.  If you are not comfortable with either of those, email me or share with me on Facebook and I will share some of your stories in my blog post on the 18th.
Will you join me????  It's just ONE thing, but a lot of little ones can make a big difference!

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Got some ideas to add??  Share your ideas in a comment below!!

30 comments:

Martha said...

What a lovely idea. My girls and I liked the idea of bringing cookies to a neighbor! FYI (and it's probably just a blogger problem that will resolve itself but) your blog updates no longer who on my feeder or on my blog. It says that you haven't written a new post in over a week!

Janine Huldie said...

This is truly a wonderful idea and have to think about what I can do. I usually donate every year to Toys for Tots, but still waiting on my husband's company to start collecting. The drop box has been set up just yet. But will totally see what I can do. Thanks for sharing this Lisa and seriously love it!

Chris Carter said...

LOVE LOVE LOVE THIS IDEA!!!!!! You can count me IN!!! I will do a few of those on your fabulous list my friend! What a beautiful way to focus on ONE thing- that is 'do-able' and worthy of our time and effort this season!


I will share this and just keep reminding us about it okay? Lord knows, I won't be able to remember that link up day! LOL

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks, Martha! hope you will share the experience on the 18th. Thanks for the heads up about the feed. I'll look into it!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks, Janine! Toys for Tots is a great one and I would love to see pictures of you and the girls shopping for toys and donating! :-)

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

I will definitely keep reminding! Thanks so much for supporting and sharing! Can't wait to see what you do~

Angela McKeown @Momopolize said...

Count me in! Fantastic idea!!!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks Angela!

Dana said...

This is a wonderful idea, Lisa. Our family is already doing a few things on the list, but we can always do more. I'll help spread the word!

The Dose of Reality said...

FANTASTIC idea! :) Love everything about this post and everything about this mission! :) Off to share right now!-Ashley

Jennifer Barbour said...

Love, love, love this. I can most certainly do one thing...though I'm thinking we'll do more than one thing. Sharing everywhere!

Angela said...

Fantastic idea and post. I'm in love!!!

katbiggie said...

Lisa I absolutely LOVE this idea! I have found that doing kind things for others makes me feel so much better. I would love to have you guest post about this on my Sunshine After the Storm page - where we are all about bringing hope and love and encouragement to grieving parents. As one myself, I have found that doing things to help other grieving parents brings me hope and light. I am sharing this everywhere! Hugs.

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks Dana! I would love for you to write a post about what you are doing and share o the 18th! :-)

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks so much Ashley!!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

:-) Can't wait to hear what you do! We delivered hot chocolate to the teachers who were outside supervising the carpool drop off ay my kids' school this morning. I'm sure we'll do more, too!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thank you Angela!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

I would love to! Just let me know when and where to send. :-)

Karyn Pickles said...

Beautiful, Lisa! Count me in!

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Awesome! Thanks!

Michelle Nahom said...

I think this is a wonderful idea! I usually find something to do and do it...I haven't decided what that will be this year.

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Hopefully, this gave you some fresh ideas! :-)

Ginnymarie said...

You're on! I love your ideas, Lisa!

Kate @ Another Clean Slate said...

These are all great ideas. I have a holiday party tonight that is collecting toy donations at the door, as is my company party next week.

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Thanks! Looking froward to seeing what you choose to do! :-)

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

It's o.k. to admit that! I think we have to start when they are young so they grow up knowing what it is really about! :-) I look forward to hearing what you decide to do~ (More ideas coming up on Wednesday/Thursday)

Lisa @ The Golden Spoons said...

Awesome!! That is definitely spreading some hope, joy, peace, and love! :-)

Chris Carter said...

I totally understand every single point you made here Lisa!! TOTALLY! I am right there with you- but somehow we ended up "in it" and my kids enjoy it so much, that it is worth it all to me. They both believe in the magic of it ALL- even though my daughter is ten years old! You would think a fifth grader would know by now.... I know it's coming soon. Embracing the moment now. :)

Kristi - Finding Ninee said...

I am in. Wedo something similar each season and it brings us great joy!!!

Ashley Linder said...

Such a great idea!!!

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