Sharing Biscuits & Water Bottles

I have this friend who every week goes to love on ladies in a rehab center...ladies who are serving out their prison terms and working on getting their lives straightened out. I've yet to meet a person with a bigger heart.

It was a family member who spent time in that facility that connected us, knowing we were both writers. Pam & I became Facebook friends and when her new book all about her experiences with these ladies recently became available, I excitedly bought a copy. If you're looking for something that will tug at your heartstrings...and make you laugh out loud, go to  http://purpleladiesinrecovery.blogspot.com/ and learn all about Pam Kumpe and her newest book.

Pam also attends church with homeless folks under the bridge of a large city nearby. When I met with her recently, she shared how just that week she’d made bunches & bunches of biscuits to go with the donated water bottles she had to give out. After the church service, one man asked if she had made the biscuits herself. "With the help of a can and an oven," she replied. She told him she'd forgotten to get some jelly so she used a whole pound of butter to slather the biscuits so they'd be tasty. "Them's the best biscuits I've have in a good while," he told her.

The Bible tells us envy is a sin but it’s hard for me not to envy my friend and the way God is using her to bring joy to the forgotten ones of our society. Then I remind myself there’s been times in my life like that. I look back with much joy to the years I volunteered at a Montessori pre-school located in Dallas’s inner city. The director and I crafted most of the teaching tools we used back then but those little ones learned new things anyway. I recall the sense of satisfaction I got the first time someone I’d been tutoring passed their GED examinations.

It doesn’t take much to reach out and give a helping hand, share yourself with others. Sometimes all it takes is having your eyes open to the opportunities and be willing.