They are empty and we have plenty
Americans, you don’t have to wonder where to give some money for your charity side of giving. Just drive down the road. Become an investigator and observe before you give – our country is full of needy broken Americans that bad luck came to visit and stayed.
~Look for a roof that is patched beyond patching.
~Look for a house that has a lawn that needs to be mowed.
~Look for that person having car problems and they are $500 short of coming up with enough money to repair it.
~Look at that house you drive by everyday and you see hardship written all over it.
~Look for someone that has a window or two that needs new panes of glass to help stave off the winter’s cold.
~Look for that elderly couple you pass everyday that needs some TLC because their children live too far away.
~Look for that yard full of children playing and they don’t have any playground equipment.
~Look for that yard full of children and they are without a father to provide for them in many areas.
~Look for that person you see in the store isle that is buying the basic essentials to check out at the cashier.
~Look at the grocery basket coming down the isle in your local supermarket where kids are clinging to it and their sad eyes wish they could have the things that their mother says, “No! we can’t afford it.” It doesn’t always have to be money or candy. It can be necessary items and nutritional things such as milk, orange juice, wholesome cereal, potatoes, beans, rice, bread, apples, bananas, toothpaste, hygiene products, shampoo, toilet paper, napkins, laundry soap, bath soap, lunch money for the kids, eggs, 100 percent juices (not Kool-aide), etc. It doesn’t have to be cereals with a truck load of sugar, etc.
How can you get it to them without embarrassing them in the store. Stop and ask the mother if you can meet her in the parking lot because you have something for her and the children. Go ahead and do the shopping and align yourself so as to get out about the same time as she will exit the store. If you have a superior Father in your faith, call on Him and ask for guidance. He will make it happen. Go home and sleep well this night. Get up and do it all over again. Make the world a better place for you, your neighbor and people you don’t know and will never meet in your life time. There are TWO powers out there to be part of you being a person to make the world a better place – your creaTOR and your deterioriaTOR. Hint: one builds and the other destroys. Choose.
~Look around for someone with their vehicle’s hood open and depression is written all over the person’s face as well as giving off a flashing sign on their vehicle.
~Look around while you are traveling and you come upon a family stranded beside the notfreeway and it flashes “help them”- help them – help them” in your mind as you put miles between you and them. Take the next exit and go back and answer that voice in your mind. You may not be a mechanic but you do have a mode of transportation to get them to one. Always use common sense and be safe in situations like this. Use safety at the upmost due to the high traffic situation in these sinarios.
~Look north, east, west, and south. Need is all around even as you read this. Some passed you today and you passed many needs today as well. Focus as Galileo did.
~Look within yourself how you can help someone not as fortunate as you. Find that dedication that has collected dust in your being and clean it off. If you are still not sure, pray about it before bed and the next morning when you get up within 7 minutes it will come to you. If it didn’t work, read Psalm 37:7 and Isaiah 12:16. By the way, you have to have the world tuned out (TV, radio, MP3 player, cell phone, surround sounds, etc.). Ask him to HELP you make the world a better place today. Buckle your seat belt and enjoy the ride of a life time.
~Look at someone that catches your eye that may need help and open the door for them and greet them with a smile and a medical question – How you doin’ today?
~Look through the phone and see and hear their problem on the other end. Visualize their depression or embarrassing need and get involved in some way to help redirect this toward a sunnier ending. Sometimes its as simple as listening or calling once a week to let someone know you care for them. It is our Creator’s way of using your phone system.
I live 15 minutes away from one of my sisters and she may call me every month or so, but a 96 year old woman calls me once a week and asks about my health and tells my wife and I that she loves us and is praying for me and my family. Since I do not have a grandparent and she doesn’t have any children, I call her grandma. She gave me permission to call her that and it has been that way for 3 years now.
Her finances are very FIXED because she grew up before pensions, social security, 401k’s, etc. and she is blessed with love for her fellow human being. She was a Seventh-day Adventist nurse by profession and helped deliver thousand of babies in her surrounding area. She was the community taxi for the sick, down and out until she was 94 when the doctor told her that she would have to give up driving. She sold her early 1980’s model Chrysler K-car and now she depends on relatives, fellow neighbors and church family to even get to church. Her K-car was used to transport the elderly that was younger than her. She took them to their doctor appointments, to the pharmacy and to the grocery store. She told me they were elderly and not helped by their own children and even elderly people abandoned by their own children who lived nearby or even states away. Friends come over and read her the Bible since her eyes are not as young as they once were. The only entertainment she has piped in is 3ABN (3-Angels Broadcasting Network) via satellite. No 4-letter words being piped into her modest home.
She is not wealthy, but is rich in life, history, memories, friends, wisdom and blessings from her spiritual Father. By the way, this 96 year old grandma is approximately 5 ft. – 2 in. tall and knows the Bible inside out. Verda is used as the Bible study living encyclopedia for the Sabbath Bible study classes. She told me once she was the runt-of-the-bunch from a family of either 11 or 12 siblings. She told me her first chore as a 2-year old was to carry in one stick of kindling when her brothers and sisters were bringing in the evening’s firewood. I have been in her home and it is like stepping back into a early 1900’s time period home. I call it early fung schway. She lives simply and thrifty.
She and a wheelchair confined elderly friend took a van and traveled to Alaska and was gone for over a month. This was when she was 94 and her friend in her 70’s. Her disabled friend would drive and Verda could walk into the many hotels to get their room. The hotel clerks were astonished by them as they journeyed.
Thank you Grandma Verda, for being an example for me and being my friend and prayer machine for my soul. I feel humble and priviledged to be under your Angel wing.
(to be continued because there will always be the poor)
