Act 30 - Meet a need

I’m a day late with Act 30 which focuses on meeting a need locally, for example donating to the local food bank. We have a collection point for our local food bank in our church and as I was in town and doing some shopping today, I made sure I picked up a few extra things especially for the food bank. I notice that our local food bank also has an online shopping list which shows which things are particularly low in stock which is useful for future reference – will try and remember this when I next do my shopping.

Act 29 - Well versed

Today’s act encourages us to share our favourite Bible verse and why it’s meaningful to us.  This is one of mine:

“I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” (Philippians 4:13)

This has helped me through some very difficult times, helping me realise that if I lean on God for strength, He will help me endure and get through.  It brought me comfort when I was pregnant with my eldest daughter and faced a very high probability of losing her, praying for a miracle (which we received, thank you Lord!) and strength to endure whatever the journey held.

Act 28 - Go guerilla

Act 28 focuses on meeting someone’s need without telling them – for example, cleaning a neighbour’s car, picking up litter in a public place – without drawing attention to yourself.  It’s not easy to be inconspicuous though with two small children in tow!  So I focused instead on the idea of the raknomination (doing a random act of kindness) mentioned later in the post and have been putting together a slideshow video for a couple of friends.  It won’t be a secret who sent the video but hopefully they will like it and it will come as a nice surprise for them.

Act 27 - Blooming marvellous

Today’s act encourages us to give someone some flowers for no other reason than because we care.  I love giving flowers (for the last few years my Christmas present to my mum has been the promise of giving her flowers every month throughout the year)  I bought three bunches of flowers for three of my beautiful sisters just because they are my sisters and I love them.   They were all very pleased with their unexpected gift of flowers (particularly as they were given to them by my toddler which was very cute) – it felt good not to need an occasion.

Act 26 - Domino

Today's act encourages us to 'pay it forward', to buy the next person in line at the coffee shop a latte, to share God's generosity with those around us. My act of 'paying it forward' was quite small - I paid for a parking ticket with the maximum parking time and left it on the machine for the next person to use. What was more important to me today was trying to offer some small words of comfort to a schoolfriend who has just lost her young child. Sharing God's comfort was more needed today than a random act of generosity.

Act 25 - Treasure hunt

Today’s act encourages us to go to a public place and let God lead us, asking God to do something through us.  I went into my local shopping centre and ended up chatting to one of the professional fundraisers who was trying to raise awareness of a charity called Action Medical Research For Children.  Whilst I wasn’t in a position to sign up for a regular donation, I did find out more about the work the charity has done, including developing the first UK polio vaccine, and ended up looking at their website later on and making a small donation.

Act 24 - Grinning = winning

Today’s act is a challenge to make someone else smile by sharing some one-liners, so here are a few:

- My pet snail was too slow to win races so I took his shell off. That made him even more sluggish

- I once called the AA man to see what a man who ran on little batteries looked like (Milton Jones)

- I can hear music coming out of my printer. I think the paper’s jammin’ again

- I met a Dutch girl with inflatable shoes last week, phoned her up to arrange a date but unfortunately she’d popped her clogs (Peter Kay)