Yesterday, I began my day with a beautiful meditation by Lectio365 on hospitality. The opening prayer tugged at my heart:

This particular meditation series is how I began my days all throughout Lent and I’ve decided to adopt it for this season of my life. It allows me to just be and not do. It triggers thoughts that guide my day in prayer and ushers me into the day with a particular focus.

It was a cold and damp morning and I didn’t want to run errands, but I had to head out to our local post office. Our town is a tiny blip on the map – one of the things I loved when I moved here years ago. However, when it comes to running errands my wheels always take me to the next town over where I can run several errands at one time. Yesterday, I just wanted to get in, get out and get home and I only needed to go to the post office.

When I first moved to our town, many years ago, our post office was located in a “tiny house”. Yep, we had ’em before they were all the rage. Coming from a small city, that had everything within walking distance, I found it different. When I say small, I mean it, we were lucky to get two people at a time in the lobby. Much to our excitement, a few years after our move, they relocated to a new building on the “main drag” of town. Even today, compared to the other post offices nearby, ours is still pretty darn small.

Several years ago, we started to notice homemade signs and posters being put up around the building featuring things around the holidays such as Halloween, Mothers Day, or Christmas. Yesterday, I really took the time to look around and found a collaboration with our local library for the Kindness Rocks movement – offering kind words and sentiments to bring a smile to someone’s face………and it did! I knew this all began with one postal employee named Kevin, so I took the time to ask WHY. Why did he start all this? He said it all began with his best friend. They believed that if they could bring a smile to ONE person’s face, it would all be worth it. And so, they took action.

Apparently, it was bringing smiles to so many more people than they ever imagined. Our little post office is truly the HEART of our little town. It’s where ideas flourish, children find joy, and a community collaborates for its people. Movements like this have encouraged conversations among strangers, brought a smile to the faces of children and adults alike, and offer more than a little bit of hope and happiness when out on a mundane errand in the middle of the week. I didn’t realize how much I needed this little diversion in my day.

The world needs more hearts like Kevin’s; ones that carry the proper attitude of hospitality. His kindness certainly rocks! When I asked him why he did all this, his humble reply was simply “it’s a community effort”. Yes, yes it is….an effort that took one person’s great big heart and an act of compassion to start.

Getting to the Root of Change and helping you LOVE the season of life you’re in.

I hope you enjoyed your visit here today.  If you did, please share your thoughts in the comments below. If you know someone who might enjoy it, would you consider sharing with them or on your social media accounts using the hashtag #gardenerstouch.