Category: Good Works

Share Your Skill

Published on by Kim

Do you make the best cinnamon rolls ever, the kind your family begs for at holidays?
Can you tile a backsplash with the best?
Is your pantry an thing of beauty, organized and labelled?
Does your garden have enough prize-winning produce to feed your family and the neighbors?
Do numbers flow easily for you, and you love making a budget?

With what skill have you been gifted? There are many possible, big and small.

Who could benefit from that skill? There is probably someone around you that would be blessed.

Sharing with others has a number of benefits:

  • The woman described in Proverbs 31 had a wide variety of skills, which she used to bless her family and community. What she knew how to do flowed out of her and enriched those around her. You can do the same thing with what you know.
  • We are stronger together. When you share what you know with someone else, you are making their plans stronger. You are also investing in a stronger relationship through that sharing, which makes for a stronger church, community, or family.
  • Sharing a needed skill with someone else is a way to love your neighbor. Who has a bathroom in need of TLC, but the budget doesn’t quite match the need? What about when the labor cost is handled with a new skill, learned from a friend?
  • This kind of mentoring can help you obey Titus 2:3-4. If you are old enough to have gained a valuable skill, there is probably someone younger who can benefit from it as they grow in godliness.
  • And we haven’t even mentioned the simple joy of being together and  getting something special, and/or needed, done. It’s fun! I have both experienced that kind of fun and watched it happen.

So, please, please look for opportunities to share your knowledge with someone else. Invest in a good thing. The more we all do this, the more we all benefit.

Suffering from Isolation

Published on by Kim

“On a very practical level, human beings just fundamentally have a better chance of surviving in social and familial groups than in isolation,” says a Forbes article.

Most of us would not argue the basic sense in that statement. But how well is that reflected in our daily lives?

Surgeon General Murthy, referencing his practice in Boston, said that the most common illness he saw “was not heart disease or diabetes, but it was isolation. It was social disconnection.”

There are multiple factors in our culture’s increasing trend toward isolation, and it is so easy to drift that way without realizing it. How often do we catch ourselves absorbed in our phones in a group of friends? How many days are full of tasks and productivity without any meaningful interaction with all the people we saw, sometimes even our family members? How many good friends do you have, who know your daily life — good, bad, and ugly?

One beauty in loving our neighbors is that it is so good for us AND our neighbor. We need each other. Not just the help with a flat tire, but we also need the relationship. Conversations on the front porch, a daily phone call to an elderly family member or friend, and shared meals all improve our physical and emotional well-being, as well as our spiritual fitness.

God’s wisdom is amazing! Love your neighbor today.