Day 31 ❦ Embrace our humanness.

Day 31

The Gift:

My giving notebook

I knew that I was going to have to write about this day for years. When I began this exercise I found the cutest little notebook whose cover in a black and white with yellow sepia tones pictured a smiling little girl dressed in a happy yellow flowered sun dress holding a daisy that was larger than her. It was perfect - giving larger than life, happiness and hope all bundled up in one little book.

The first page begins...”To Serve, Create and Bring Joy!” On the left hand side of each page is a date, month and day of the month,  followed by a description of the gift that I gave and a few notes about any observations, gifts received, the pieces of the story that I would write about later and any feelings that I had about that particular giving experience. I wanted it to be easy to record and then later transfer into the journal that you are reading now.

The note book itself is 4 inches by 6 inches, each page holds between 3 - 5 gifting experiences and filled with one great story after another. Despite its size, there is enough room in the notebook for me to use it for the second cycle of giving that I am conducting now and in fact, I could consider 5 or 6 more cycles of 100 days of giving and still have plenty of room to record everything I need to remember each day’s experience. That is except for today’s giving experience...

Today, Day 31 of the first 100 Days of Giving is blank. And not blank as in I forgot to write down what happened, blank as in I just didn't give anything today. I didn't forget to give, I didn't forget to write down the giving experience. I just didn't give anything today.

Knowing that I was planning on writing about my entire experience, I wrestled with just rolling day 32 into this day and shifting all of the subsequent days, but that didn't feel right. I thought about writing something philosophical like I gave of myself somewhere, but I didn't  I thought about staring all over since I hadn't really had 100 consecutive days of giving...but then I realized that we are all human and despite the challenges and standards that we set for ourselves, it is okay to recognize that we are all human and need a day off.

When I began this exercise 30 days ago, I was at an all-time low and was looking for something to kick-start me back into the human race. I needed something to move me outside of myself and I needed to be open to others’ needs instead of focusing on my own. To beat myself up for missing a day would defeat all that had been accomplished and I was unwilling to diminish all of the great things that had happened in the past 30 days. Intentionally giving, focusing on others, being open to interacting with people in new ways has added a dimension to my life that I not only appreciate and love, but that gives me something to look forward to each day. Today it just wasn't there and I needed to give into that. Period.

Now, the challenge is that just because I gave in today...will that make it easier to give in tomorrow? Or the next day? So now I know what I need to do. I need to intentionally add one day off each month when I can intentionally take the day off. God rested on the 7th day, surely it is okay for me to rest on the 30th day. So Be It. That is what I am going to do. Today...I rested.

❦ Embrace our humanness.