Recently after
telling two of my brothers a story they said to me, “you really need to
share this kinda thing with others so you can inspire them!” It is true that for the most part resist sharing
a lot of things publicly or with various people in general
because I do not ever want to be mistaken or perceived as the type of
person that does things for people for the sake of essentially implying
“look at me, look at what I am doing” or viewed
at as "tooting my own horn." That is not me.
However, with that
said, today I feel quite compelled to share a short story with all of
you. Okay, well, who am I kidding there is never a “short” story when
Brandi is talking… ; ) So please bear with me.
My hope with this message is to help inspire compassion by sharing an experience through the words in this message. : )
Some of you may know that 2012 was a killer rough year for me. In fact, it was the hardest and most emotional year of my short number of years on this earth.
By October, I began
to emerge from a deep, deep depression as a result of my grandfathers passing. I recognized while I was back home for his funeral that although he lived a wonderful 95 years on this earth, his life was short! MY life is short! I
woke up and realized that I could not be miserable anymore and I was
going to turn things around in my life. My mantra from that day forward
has been “change your perspective, change your life.”
Due to all the pain I experienced in 2012 and this recent revelation related to my grandfathers passing, I have made a promise to myself that 2013 will be a year of physical, mental, and spiritual
transformation.
So as part of my
“plan” to make this happen and also to make up for my lack of doing good
for others in 2012, I have decided to commit 365 random acts of
kindness in 2013. Every. Single. Day.
this year I will do something to make someone’s day special.
One of my other goals is not unlike most people’s “new years resolutions." It is to shed some of this extra weight I am carrying on my body. So as I was cleaning out my cupboards
I was trying to figure out what I could do with the opened food items considering you can’t donate that kinda thing. So I took an inventory of what I had… some bread… some baking supplies…some potato chips, etc.
Then this idea popped into my head… Here in Anchorage we have a disturbing number of homeless folks. : ( Can you imagine? It is winter here like 8 months
out of the year and there are homeless people here? It breaks my heart!
So on Thursday night I
stayed up late making homemade chicken salad and I assembled 15
sandwiches, made a homemade dessert, among other things.
The next day around lunchtime, I called up a friend to serve as my accomplice. Some of the areas of town I needed to go are, well, not the safest, so I decided to invite a co-pilot along for the ride,
just in case.
So we did! And let me tell you! It was the biggest blessing I can remember receiving in a very long time. After I had dished up everyone’s plates and passed out the
food, every single one of them (9 folks in total) came up to me to say “Thank you” or “God Bless You” “Are you with a church? Why are you doing this?” I even got a hug from several of them! Mind you, a slightly smelly
hug, but the BEST hugs I can remember getting in a long time! : )
The message in this bottle I am sending is not about me, it is about compassion and being the world to
someone for just a second or two between the busy moments of our lives.
Otherwise life's distractions may prevent us from
enjoying the act of sharing and caring for one another. Is there
really a greater purpose in this life than to serve one another?
I said all of this to hopefully encourage and inspire each of you to commit a random act of kindness every now and then. Big or small, it doesn’t matter! And if you need ideas – please feel free to contact me. I have over
5 pages of ideas scribbled out and more ideas keep coming to me every day.
I wish nothing but many blessing to each of you in this New Year. We
have so much to be thankful for in our lives! In closing, I will leave
you with some photos from the day, a favorite quote and an article that I
found tonight
to help give you a little more inspiration.
Luceat lux vestra! (Latin for "Let your light shine!")
"To the world you may just be someone, but to someone you may be the whole world." - Unknown
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Great blog, keep writing:)
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