18 Acts

Hi blog world,

It's 11:19 and I'm wide awake with some sciatic nerve pain, so I thought, "what the heck, I might as well blog." So here I am.

I need to give you a bit of a background story for this blog. 6 years ago my sweet aunt (and one of my best friends) lost a daughter. Gracelyn, our little angel baby was born with Trisomy 18 and was only here for 18 hours.  I was 16 at the time and I'm so grateful to my aunt for letting me be a part of those few precious hours.  I was able to hold her and feel how special her sweet little spirit is. I wish I were better with words.  I know I can't even begin to describe the emotions felt that day - maybe there's no words that really can express the feelings felt that day.  I just remember feeling incredibly peaceful.

In honor of Gracelyn's birthday, my aunt decided she wanted to perform 18 acts of kindness to honor her baby.  I thought that sounded pretty awesome and of course I joined in.  I'm not going to go into detail about what selfless acts I've performed, and I'm not done with all 18 just yet, but I do want to share a little about my experiences.

I don't know about you, but sometimes going out of my way to help/comfort/serve another scares me.  This is partly because I'm afraid they'll think I'm weird, but more because I just don't know where to start.  I'm afraid that wherever I start will be the wrong place and I'll go about helping all wrong.  Also, when someone has gone through something tragic or upsetting I'm afraid to speak words of comfort.  What if they don't have the same beliefs as me?  What if I offend them? What if this poor hurting person doesn't want anyone to talk to them about whatever they are struggling with? Will I just make it worse?

I know I shouldn't think those things, but I do.  My aunts 18 acts of kindness challenge was and still is the exact thing I need to push me out of my comfort zone.  It's excellent motivation to be more aware of others and to go out of my way more often to help another.

I've also realized that my fears are slightly irrational.  Whenever I've been hurting in the past, kind words/acts from others are what have helped me make it from one day to the next.  So why am I being so selfish in not doing all I can for another?  There's really no good reason at all.

My few experiences I've had in the last month have all been so positive,  I hope I've helped raise others up, maybe I haven't.  I have, however, come to learn that what they say is true, service often times does more good for the person giving the serve, than the recipient of the service.