Showing posts with label random acts of kindness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random acts of kindness. Show all posts

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Retuning My Heart


My sister-in-law has a flair for decorating and a personality people seek out. She is regarded as a best friend by many and has found tremendous success in her career. But that's not what has touched my heart about her.


What touches my heart is that she has made a deliberate effort to love those people who are deemed, "hard to love." She says the last couple of years have been wonderfully fulfilling as she has chosen to stand in what is sometimes the receiving end of their anger, their frustration, their hurt. It doesn't make sense to some people. Why would anyone choose to be there in the ugliness, the messiness, the worthlessness?


Because it's what Christ commands.


And with His help, sometimes it's possible to see the beauty buried and hidden deeply within the mess we've made of his creation.






Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Cupboard Cooking

A few weeks ago we ran out of money.  I mean, we weren't homeless or destitute, but we were pretty much cashless and would remain that way until payday which was three weeks away.  What that meant for our family was a buckling down of spending or rather, as Checkered reminded me, a stopping of spending.  Much to my own dismay, that included the grocery store, too.

At first I figured we could all just diet and fast until payday and maybe Checkered and I could regain our youthful, svelte figures that we never really ever had in the first place. But then I remembered that I owned some children.  No, we did not eat them.

So, clever homemaker that I am, I announced,
"What an exciting adventure this will be for the Flag family!  Until the end of July, we shall be cupboard cooking. Our meals will generate with the ingredients currently living in our cupboards.  Let's see how creative we can be!"
And clever we were for a meal or two.  Then my creativity failed me, my picky eaters failed me and the weatherman failed me.   We were quite bubbly from beans.  We were not quite satisified from cereal night.  And it was simply too hot to cook the mystery, label-less foods I found in the back of the cabinets.
So brainstorm of brainstroms, while talking to my sister, Red, one day I decreed that we would be eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner that night.  It was fast, cool, and a guaranteed winner.
Dinner time arrived, and I was happily loading an entire loaf of whole wheat bread with peanut butter when the doorbell rang.
Who could it be?
To be continued...
HINT: It was NOT Red [who lives a mere 1800 miles from me:( ]