Countdown with Kindness

December is upon us and the countdown to Christmas is here. Thoughts of finding the perfect gift for friends and family begin to fill our minds. If you’re like me, you may already be well into your shopping.

The perfect gift is personalized to the needs and desires of the recipient.  What one person would love another would hate, so it can take effort to find just the right one. But there is something that is perfect for everyone and just the right size, though it is often a gift in short supply. It’s not the latest toy or electronic but simple love and kindness.

Turn on the tv, go online, and even look into homes, and it’s clear that they are something our world is in desperate need of.  A wise man once said, “be the change you wish to see in the world.”   I want to see more love and kindness, so that means I need to be more loving and kind.

“Be kind and loving to each other, and forgive each other just as God forgave you in Christ.”              Ephesians 4:32

You can share love and kindness no matter who you are or what your age for neither require position, experience, or money. They require only good intention and tender action.

Christmas is the day to celebrate the greatest kindness, the greatest love, and the greatest gift of all: the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. This year our family is counting down to it with random acts of  love and kindness. Won't you join us?

Imagine the impact we could have if each of us intentionally shines God’s light every day in December. It might spread, like ripples on the water, across kitchen tables, neighborhoods, and schools healing wounds and divisions across the land.

If you are joining us on the countdown, here is a printable kindness calendar along with a list of simple ideas to help get you started. You can download them here.  Have fun with it. The sky is the limit.

I’d love for you to share your countdown experience, so I invite you to come back to this post and leave a comment or send me an email at abwilds@yahoo.com.

Be blessed,

Ann

How to Be a Secret Agent

Recently, I had a very significant birthday. Instead of birthday presents, we celebrated life. My friends gave me wonderful “gifts”, stories of their service to others. 

In the series Mission Impossible, first on television and then on film, a crack group of secret agents are presented with a mission of seemingly impossible odds. Known as the Impossible Missions Force (IMF), they are given the option of refusing each case. They never do and they never fail.

There is a darkness growing in our land. It steals joy and leaves behind anger, bitterness and strife. People feel insignificant and lash out at one another. The world needs to know that God truly loves each and every one. And it is up to us to tell them, not just through our words but in our deeds. It may only be something as simple as a smile or a kind response - where normally there would be annoyance- to effect a change. But in other times, much more will be needed to show His love. 

So, dear reader, your mission, should you chose to accept it, is to go into the world at-large and frustrate the plan of darkness, to fight against the spread of hatred wherever it may arise. Undercover as an ordinary person, in truth, you’ll be a secret agent for good.  Each time you do something kind or helpful in God’s name, wherever or whatever the need, you'll shine His light. 

And even the light of a single candle can stem the advancing night.   

Message for the Journey:

No soldier leaves the battlefield without scars but still they fight on, to destroy the enemy, to save lives, to protect the world. Neither will we, as Christ's soldiers, leave life’s battlefield without scars.  But if we work together, we can defeat the dark for with God no mission is ever impossible. 

                                                                                                                                    -Ann Wilds
 

 "For nothing is impossible for God."

- Luke 1:37