Young, Able, and There's A Need for Kindness

This past Friday night, I took my kids shopping for school supplies.  In other words, I took 2 kids to Wal-Mart on a Friday night and became utterly exhausted by checking lists and following them around the store looking for each item in the colors they wanted.  Tired is really not a word that does any of that justice.  Any one who has even just one child, knows that the school shopping adventure is like none other.  

That said, you can imagine how little energy I had after we had finally checked out (mind you- 2 shopping carts full, 1 with school supplies and the other with needed groceries) and made our way into the parking lot.  As we walked towards the car, we noticed people had left their shopping carts all over the parking lot, not a single one made it to the cart holder.

Don't get too upset, there is an explanation. Yes, sometimes people do just leave them without putting them away in the cart holder.  But in this situation, there had been a pretty intense storm while we were in Wal-Mart.  So more than likely, these were the carts of those that ran out into the rain, jumped in their cars and left.

The rain had stopped just 10 minutes before we checked out, thankfully for us.  So, after the girls helped me unload our carts, they were each taking one of our carts to the cart holder.  As they were taking the carts, I grabbed one of the other carts in the lot and said to my kids "We are young, we are able, and we should show kindness to our world whenever we can. Let's put up all these carts." 

My girls didn't argue or whine, they just started grabbing carts.  Together, we put all the carts away into the cart holder. Once the lot was tidy, we walked back to our car to go home.  A man saw us and stopped us, thanking us for what we had done.  This simple thing of putting shopping carts away, had made this strangers day. 

I hope and pray my kids will remember what we did in that parking lot of Wal-Mart, and pay attention when there's a need for kindness.  Especially in this world we live in today.  The world really could use more people simply being kind to the world and people around them.

We are young, we are able, and there's a need for kindness - everywhere!