Lilac Saloon

A Year of Giving: Water

How simple is water? How common? How easy for us to get? How necessary for life? I bet most of us drink it all day long. We shower with it every morning. We cook with it. It is so easy to take something as common as water for granted, isn't it?! And yet logically we know that not everyone in the world has it as easy as we do. We can't just go walking around all day thinking about the people that don't have enough clean water to drink or to bathe in. This month (it's almost over but it's never too late), or let's just say TODAY, let's find a way to give clean water to someone who needs it.

A Year of Giving: Food

 

This month, let's focus on giving one of the most basic necessities of life - food. Most of us are lucky enough to have plenty of it, or even excessive amounts of it! It is so easy for us to get healthy food whenever we want it. Even though we shop on a budget, we are able to get all we need and extra treats when we want them. Giving what you have in abundance is a great start to becoming a habitual giver.

A Year of Giving: Comfort

 

Feeling compassion for others and offering comfort is so important in connecting with each other on a deeper level.

There are many ways that you can give comfort to others since it is a broad term. This is all about thinking of others and it doesn't have to be on a huge scale!

• Give your significant other some new warm socks to get through the winter with warmer toes. 
• Give your neighbors some hot cocoa mix (is there anything more comforting?). 
• If you see someone who is having a bad day, give them a pack of gum or a $5 gift card to a coffee shop. Just a little, sweet pick-me-up.
• Reach out and offer some words of encouragement to someone who is sad and hurting. Tell them it will be ok.
• Donate some basic necessities to a homeless or womens shelter, offering comfort in terms of meeting their basic needs.
• Give some chicken soup to a friend or relative that you know has a cold.

I'm going to be thinking of this topic all month and looking for ways that I can give comfort to others. Because of how cold it has been here (around ZERO degrees, sometimes even colder) I am going to start by providing some warm comfort to others! Donating some warm clothes, give some cocoa to the library for them to make for people, and maybe make some baby hats to donate!

What will you give in terms of comfort this month? What are your ideas?? Let's inspire each other!

A Year of Giving

There is something about giving that is more powerful than we give it credit for. We can all give just a little and truly change our world. Giving can be so easy and yet we don't give it enough attention in our daily lives. We save it for special occasions. We think we don't have enough to give. We forget that what we give will come back to us in new and wonderful ways.

Giving is a byproduct of the practice of gratitude. When you are truly grateful for what you already have, you are happy to give what you have, knowing your needs are met. This year I want to embark on a year-long journey of giving. By turning it into a project, broken down into categories each month, it will help me to find new and creative ways to give. It will give me some focus and make it easier to be passionate about a specific kind of giving in the moment. There are SO many ways to give, so many causes, so many needs to be met in this world. I can't possibly cover them all in a year. I've chosen a topic for each month as a starting point of inspiration. I am inviting you to make this journey with me and join in on giving how and when you can throughout the project this year. 

Not all categories encourage monetary giving. The project will cover categories that are specific like "Water" and cover a basic human need as well as more broad categories like "Community" where we can explore different ways to give to our communities and feel more connected. You can give time, you can give words of encouragement, give a helping hand, give what you already have, give knowledge and love. Through this hopefully we can all grow as people and become more connected to each other!

Please share this post, and accept my invitation to join in A Year of Giving!