Free Gifts We Can Give - Every Day

When our children were young, they would often give us "coupons" as gifts... A coupon valid for washing the dishes, another for vacuuming the living room, another for accompanying us on a walk... Sometimes there was one for a hug to cheer us up! We were always happy to receive their hand-written coupon "books," stapled together, full of offers to do chores that our children didn't necessarily like doing but were willing to do as a gift...

We cherished these coupons, not only for the "work" they were offering to do, but for the time and energy they put into thinking about what help we might appreciate and then creating the coupons. (I looked for some I may have kept as "souvenirs" of those childhood days - but I must have used the coupons all up!)

Joyce Meyer's daily devotional, Love Out Loud, made me think of those childhood gifts of time and effort because, in her entry for January 20, she lists acts of kindness we can do for each other every day to "love out loud."

We can...

• Watch over one another
• Pray for one another
• Look for kindnesses we can express to others
• Be friendly and hospitable [Elsewhere I remember her saying that friendliness is a form of hospitality...]
  
• Be patient with one another
• Bear with other's faults and weaknesses
• Give others the benefit of the doubt
• Encourage one another
• Be loyal to one another
• Be happy for people when they are blessed
• Keep people's secrets and don't tell their faults
• Believe the best of one another

It's easy to forget that the best gift we can offer is a bit of ourselves - our time and effort. And - as our children realized in those days when allowances didn't go far in gift purchasing... helping someone is not only fun (and appreciated)... it's totally FREE!