This morning before church I’m putting together a tater tot casserole, salad and brownies for a friend at church and homeschool co-op. Her husband is out of town for many months at a time and she has several young children.
I was watching her wrangling the littles ones at church last week and remembering what that was like for me. My husband used to travel quite a bit for weeks at a time. Sometimes he’d be gone for two weeks, home for a week and so on. Once he was gone for a month when I had three small kids under the age of 5 and was a breastfeeding stay-at-home mom. I throw the breastfeeding in there because I think that made my kids hard to leave. Not that I ever wanted to leave them with anyone … maybe twice a year I would go out alone or on a date with my husband. I loved (still love) being with my kids as much as possible, but I remember the physical work of being mom to tiny ones and it was exhausting. To have someone cook for me was divine!
Anyway, it feels good to remember that you were in a certain challenging position once and that now you can help someone. I was married at age 19 to an abusive man. I honestly think he is a sociopath. He is in jail right now for trying to go on a little vacation with his third wife’s teen daughter. Talk about some serious molester grooming. Anyway, now that I am in a good place with an amazing husband and my healthy kids and write-from-home life I always wanted, I can’t help but want to give back to those who are in a position I was in once.
Take a look around you. Who might need something from you? Five bucks. A grocery card. A meal. Don’t write off those who stand at the freeway off-ramps asking for money. Take them a meal. Take a moment out of your day to connect with someone on a giving level.
You won’t regret it!