NaBloPoMo #10... RAOK

A couple of weeks ago, my church had a week of special services. On Saturday night of that meeting, my parents went to church and found a clear gift type bag addressed to me and containing the following: A bottled water, a candy bar, a small package of chocolate covered pretzels, and a sample size of Alieve(sp?). I have no idea who gave it to me, but I really appreciated the gesture, and the contents, though I haven't taken the pills yet.

The RAOK in my blog post title stands for "random acts of kindness", by the way, which my bag of goodies falls under. What if we all practiced RAOK? And often. It doesn't have to be big items....

My church does the "secret sister", aka "sisters of encouragement" thing for the women, but we guys are forgotten - I call us the "brothers of discouragement". Hmm, maybe that is why I got that stuff... because of my comments. :-) Admittedly, the RAOK might not have an effect on the ladies of the church since they already get nice things from their secret sister... although one could stick a note on the gift saying it is a RAOK, and not a secret sister gift........

Speaking of secret sisters, to be in this esteemed and exclusive group, one has to fill out a paper that asks for hobbies, favorite colors, music, etc to give the other person an idea of what to buy. I took one last year and filled it out. Not for me, but for Sarah Palin. For favorite hobbies, I put "moose hunting." My pastor's wife somehow knew I did it. I have a reputation. :-)

Only God knows what our fellow church members are dealing with. Only He knows how many of them feel discouraged, invisible, forgotten, on the verge of leaving the church..... or God. A small gift may not cure all, but who knows the good it can do.

And people remember this kind of stuff. I can still remember about 20 years ago getting a RAOK while in Bible College. I found a note in my mailbox that I had a package in the office. I opened it to find a Garfield mug that had my name on it and was filled with peppermints. How cool, I love Garfield, and whoever gave it to me knew that. They must not have known me too well or it would have been chocolate in the mug instead of peppermints.... ;-)

Anyway - I still have that mug, and that memory. I never found out who gave it to me, but it made my day.

Another RAOK done for me..... a few years ago, I spoke in church, and somehow ended up mentioning my Ipod, and how I listened to it at work. A week later, I found an envelope on the table in the church foyer with my name on it. Inside was a $10 Itunes gift card. Very cool - I used that fast.

When we do get a RAOK done to us, we then need to do something I read about. Pass it on. Oh, not the gift we received, but something else. Anonymously. That makes it more fun.

This is not a blanket statement, but all too often, we like to have it known when we do a RAOK - I don't mean telling the world, but we want the person receiving the RAOK to know it was us - and that is human, but somehow, I believe we would get a bigger blessing out of doing it anonymously. Try it.