November 29

Sorry for the quiet, all.

I've been madly working on our Summer Photo book.  Yeah.  Summer.  I'm a little behind, and in the mad rush that precedes the mad rush of Christmas, I've been devoting my evenings to sorting and labeling digital memories of a warmer time.

Nothing to inspire gratitude like making a summer book.  These glowing, blue-sky pictures; so much laughter and light in our faces!  Looking at the photos we chose to take, chose to save, chose to put in the book.... perfect lives indeed.  Huddled under a blanket on this wintry evening, those summer months seem like a time out of time, another life altogether.  But it is with gratitude and humility that I claim them as mine.  I am grateful for our summer, for the memories we made and captured, for sunlight and lakes and family and friends and the blessings of leisure and freedom we have.

Staying up late to finish a photo book has also meant catching bits of the local news.  And being hit with gratitude in a whole new light as I watched heartbreaking stories unfold:  a deadly housefire, a three-year old boy killed in his family home.  The tragedy in the world, the deep deep sadness and hurt and damage in the souls of so many.

The stark contrast between this and the photos in our digital book.

I am so grateful for what I have been given in this life.  For opportunity.  For education.  For love and unconditional support, for a family that has surrounded me with care since the day I was born.  For having enough.  For never going without.  For each and every day my little family is spared the unthinkable. For how often and easily my children laugh.  For all the moments in every day that I smile and breathe in the beauty of the world.  For the amazing privilege and daunting responsibility of passing on security, love, stability, opportunity, life to the next generation.  

I am lucky, aren't I?  To be blessed with the beauty of having more than I need, in every way. 

There are too many people in this world who do not know that blessing.  There is too much struggle.  It is not fair that in this world, right here in this country, people are hurting so deeply that they hurt others.  It is not fair that in this world, right here in this country, people can lose everything in a single moment.  It is not right that so many people are fighting to merely survive, instead of reveling in the beauty of their world.

And it doesn't do a bit of good for me to sit here and feel sad about it all.

And so here on the eve of my 36th birthday I am deciding that my December Thirty Days needs to be a challenge to DO something.  Something to help others, to reach out beyond my comfort zone, this niche of privilege and safety, to bring joy and light and ease to their days, to lift spirits, to save lives, to share what I have been given.

Money, sure.  But what else?  That's what I am going to challenge myself to figure out.

Every day, I will give of myself in some way, to help someone I have never met.  

I am going to try to do more than checking "yes" in the box to donate money at checkout.  But, hey, that will be a start, eh?

Ideas?  Bring em on.  In what small way, today, can we make the world better for someone else?