Kindness

Today in Sunday school we taught the kids about kindness. The focus however, was not just on being kind to others, but recognizing when others are kind to you. The big idea was that many times God provides what you need though the kindness of others. That was just the perfect lesson for today, because I have the perfect example of it this morning.

I have about a million and one stressors on my plate right now. And I'm not talking about little "What am I going to wear today" type stressors. I'm talking major life altering stressors. This past week I just basically hit the wall and like a roly poly I just curled up into myself to escape. I panicked. I froze. I've just been completely overwhelmed. A lot of these stressors are big things over the next few months, but, I did have one current pretty major worry.

With the school being renovated, I have to take home EVERYTHING that belongs to me in a month. As I found out this week, I have a TON of stuff! So, my current worry has been "where the heck am I going to store all this stuff over the summer?". I live on the third story in a one bedroom apartment. Sure I could keep it in my living room, but that would fill the entire space thus putting half my home out of commission for the summer. Not exactly an ideal living situation. Plus that would involve lugging it all up 3 flights of stairs then back down in a few months. Not one part of that seems reasonable or logical at all. It was looking like I was going to just have to get a storage unit for a few months, but that costs a lot of money. It's not that I couldn't afford to pay for it if I had to, but there are a lot of unknowns coming up and I sort of need to save as much money as I can. So I was pretty worried about what I was going to do about this situation.

Here's where I get to the part about God taking care of me. This morning I made it to my ABF class for the first time in months. I've been so bad about getting there early enough for anything other than sunday school. I was sitting next to this lady and she was asking if I was ready for the end of the year. I started to tell her about how I already have one foot out the door even though there are 22 1/2 days left. I was explaining the renovation and packing situation to explain why I all of a sudden felt like it should be summer and have just checked out. She asked me where I was planning to keep all my stuff over the summer and I sighed and said I thought I was going to just have to get a storage unit. She immediately offered to house all my stuff in her garage for me free of charge. She said she has a two car garage, but it's only her so she only uses half. She said up until recently her son and daughter in law had been storing a lot of stuff on the other side but had recently moved it all out so she had the space open. She offered to give me her garage code so that I can come and go as I need to in order to get it all in there.

Pure and simple kindness. This isn't someone I am great friends with, it's not someone I know incredibly well, it's someone I sit next to each week and engage in friendly conversation with. It's someone who wanted to do something nice for someone just to help them out. That's exactly what we were trying to teach the kids today. kindness. Isn't it wonderful?

One foot in front of the other, one step at a time, God is taking care of me today, and will do the same tomorrow. Somehow, I'll make it to August ...