Acts of Charity

Aside from my reading list, one of my other new years goals is to be more charitable in my thoughts and actions.  We give a good bit of money to charity, but I think we could do a better job as a family in just being more charitable on a daily basis through our actions, both big and small.  So I was recently reading on a blog about a mom who wanted suggestions for charitable things she could do with young children.  I read it with interest since you are very limited when trying to do something charitable with a 2 and a 5 year old.  Road side clean-ups... I don't think so!  Soup kitchens... not so much.  One of the suggestions on this blog seemed a little odd to me, but was certainly kind and also creative: one mom wrote that she and her children clip coupons on Sunday afternoon for products they don't buy (especially baby products like diapers and wipes), and the next time they are in a big box store, they slip the coupons on the shelves under the coordinating product for another mom to discover and brighten her day by saving her a little money!  Strange, but sweet, I thought.

So the day after reading this blog post about charity, I was at Target shopping.  I am at Target every week!  Anyway, I was heading down to the diaper aisle, a little bit grumpy about the idea of purchasing ANOTHER $20 package of diapers.  I was thinking to myself, "Man, I am tired of buying diapers."  "Why have I not gotten Pierce potty-trained yet?"  "I wish I had a coupon."  I almost never buy diapers without a coupon, but that day I did not have one.  As I reached up to grab my size 4 Huggies pull-ups, I saw a coupon neatly tucked under the corner of the exact package I needed to buy.  I pulled the coupon down and it was for $2 off the diapers I needed.  I got the hugest grin on my face thinking about that blog post that I had just read and how I had thought it was sort of an odd thing to do to clip coupons for someone else.  But I smiled thinking of some mom and her kids in Apex cutting that coupon for me last Sunday as an act of kindness.  It changed my attitude for the rest of the day.  And it was a little reminder that charity comes in all sorts of packages - showing kindness to a stranger in any way is a good way.