Stepping outside ourselves...

Betsy here!

Do you ever get the feeling your world has shrunk?

That somehow, suddenly, your world is nothing but homework and pop quizzes and fights with your best friend?

Or if you're a mom, your world is suddenly nothing but diapers and Cheezit crumbs and Nick Junior on TV?

I think we're due for a wake-up call.

It's good to get outside our own world. Up close, things look overwhelming and blurry. But when we shift our perspective, and lean back to broaden our view, things come into focus. We see more, and see more clearly.

Challenge yourself this week to wake up and ask God how you can bless someone else during your day. Maybe that's through sending a card or email or text message to a friend on your mind. Maybe that's complimenting a girl who you don't typically talk to at school on her clothing or hairstyle. Picking up something for someone that they dropped. Taking cookies to a new neighbor or a neighbor that just had a baby or a sickness in tnheir family. Smiling at strangers in the hallway. Doing a chore for your parents or sibling without being asked.

Trust me - small, random acts of kindness go a LONG way, especially in today's self-centered world. 

You'll be amazed at the results, and at the way taking your focus off your own problems brings peace and compassion and growth in your life.

Maybe you want to take it a step further and really embrace a bigger world. Go online to World Vision (http://www.worldvision.org/) and sponsor a child for an affordable monthly payment. You'll develop a relationship with this girl or boy in a foreign, poverty stricken country and exchange letters and pictures with them for years. Nothing gave me a wake up call more than when I sponsored two girls, one in Colombia and one in Lebanon. I swear they blessed me more than I ever could them.

So think about it. Step outside the box, and not just that, step outside your world. There's a lot going on out there, and when we participate in something bigger than ourselves, we change. For the better.

So bad hair day or not, broken nail or not, broken relationship or not, broken heart or not - how can you help someone ELSE today?

I'll be doing this challenge with you! Please comment and let us know what you did to help someone this week. No good deed is too small.