Charity

I am one of the lucky ones...my life has been blessed by God over and over again and I have so much to be thankful for. So, when I see someone standing on the side of the road with a sign that says, "Homeless, please help!" I instinctivly want to help him/her, in fact, I often pull over and give those individuals a few dollars, but I always feel bad about it because I feel like I'm enabling them (which I'm not really by only give them a few dollars). I often feel bad about giving to charity because I feel like I'm contributing to the problem instead of truly helping someone. In my daily life I face this dilema with my 2-year old son and my students. My son and my students often want help with something and I want to provide the help, but I'm very deliberate in how I provide the help. I teach them to use tools or I teach them strategies to solve problems opposed to doing things for them (not always though, sometimes I'm just tired and I take the "shortcut" by doing it for them, but most of the time my help comes in the form of a lesson). So, after giving the man tonight outside of McDonalds a few dollars and feeling bad about it, I got to thinking about how I could give him a tool or a strategy to truly help him and the only thing that came to my mind...GOD! Instead of giving that man a couple dollars I should have given him the phone number/address to my church. I should have lead him to people and resources that will eventually lead him closer to God. I should have prayed for him and I should have told him that Jesus loves him...and that's exactly what I will do next time!

WOW!!!