You never know, you may change a life.

I have recently found two new websites which I have completely fallen in love with. The first is http://www.givesmehope.com/. It's a website where people send in a few sentences about something that happened during their day that GMH (Gives Me Hope). Many of these stories are just random acts of kindness (RAK), or simply someone seeing someone else do something which you would not expect. Here are a few of my favourites:

• I'm a 17 year old male who has spent the past four years working through anorexia. Yesterday, I had a large order of French toast with eggs and bacon for breakfast, a cheese burger and french fries for lunch, and a steak with mashed potato and corn for dinner. I have never felt so attractive. GMH
• I'm 22 years old and about to go on my first date. I have never felt so beautiful. GMH.
• A long time ago, I was on the verge of committing suicide when a guy came to the roof to have lunch. He saw me climbing over the rail and asked me to have lunch with him. After receiving my puzzled look he continued to explain "everyone should die happy, or at least with a full stomach." We celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary last month. GMH.
• I was at a bookstore and an obscure author was doing a book signing. No body was coming over -- he looked dejected. Then three teenagers came over, got his autograph and took pictures. It looked like it made his day. Later, I talked to him and they said they'd never read his books. GMH.

Those are only a few, and all of them are so inspirational and just so humbling! Many left me with tears in my eyes or laughing out loud. This website was made after the founder came across a different website called FMyLife, which promoted exactly the opposite. People wrote in about the bad things that happened in their day. The GMH website shows the within such a horrid time as this, people still are willing to stop and help strangers, not expecting anything in return.

The next website is http://www.operationbeautiful.com/. This website encourages people to leave post-it notes on bathroom mirrors, on treadmills and weight scales at gyms, on changing room doors, on door handles, on ANYWHERE! telling people how beautiful they are, to smile, that they look stunning. There's so many testimony's on the website about people seeing these notes and it changing their day.

Its made me think, how easy is it to change someones life? We make it out to be this whole 'big deal' thing, but really its not. If all it takes is random acts of kindness, or leaving post-it notes around, then why aren't we doing more RAK's or leaving a simple post-it note somewhere.

I challenge you (I am also taking up this challenge) to leave at least one post-it note or do a random act of kindness at least once a day. Once a day? That's not even 5 minutes out of your day! Surely you can do that! You never know, you may change a life.

Will you make an effort or not?

I've noticed that lately everyone has been talking about the whole 'two degrees of separation' thing. So I found it highly amusing when I sat down on the train and the guy next to me pulled out his bible the same time as I pulled out mine. I couldn't help but laugh and asked him if he was a christian which he answered in a surprised tone that he was. We got talking and it turned out that his father was a pastor at Ranui Baptist. I didn't think anything of it, but we were talking away and we ended up sharing little snippets of our walk with Christ. It was so unbelievably encouraging hearing this 19 year old speak about how he was brought back to God after walking away from him!! I got home and asked my Mum about this family and it turns out that they went to Bible College with my family. Talk about two degrees of separation!!

The point of the story is not that everyone in New Zealand knows everyone else in New Zealand. The point is, is that as i was getting off the train the dialogue went like this:
Me: Oh well, it was awesome meeting you!
Him: Yeah, I'll no doubt see you round.
Me: *laughs* Yeah, maybe.
Him: No, we will.

I stepped off the train completely puzzled by the whole experience. First of all, I knew God had placed him in that train for us to met. It was an earlier train than the one I normally catch and the only reason he caught the train was cause his car had broken down that morning. Second of all, this meeting had encouraged me to step out in my faith. To talk to strangers on the train. Its not like they can go anywhere while your speaking to them! And third of all, what did he mean about 'I'll no doubt see you round."

It suddenly hit me that he meant that we will in fact, as brother and sister in Christ, be spending the rest of eternity together. Then I remembered a conversation I had with God on the train a few days earlier when I saw another man reading his bible. I remember feeling so deflated after realising that I'm going to be spending the rest of forever with this guy in heaven, yet I didn't even know his name!

So lately I've been thinking about how much getting to know someone can actually mean. Whether it's a stranger, a work colleague, a family member, a person who you see everyday but never talk to. Just SOMEONE! Get to know them. Ask them questions that go below the surface. I mean, if they're a christian then your going to be stuck with them forever so you may as well get to know them now! And if they're not a christian yet, then God may have placed you in this position so that one day they WILL declare God's glory for eternity with you. Its up too you... Will you make an effort or not?