The Way It Is

An Old Man and Ice Cream

Everyone wants to change the world, right? Or am I the only one? The older I get the more I'm resigned to the fact that I'm not going to be in the NBA, (that ship has sailed) I won't be the next Warren Buffett, and I'm not going to invent some cool gadget like Steve Jobs.

The realization of all this, combined with an experience I had with an old man and ice cream, has changed my perspective of success.

My wife's grandfather lost his wife about twenty years ago, after fifty years of marriage. He's still kickin', having just had his 97th birthday in August. One of the things I like to do with my kids is visit him. My kids are so fun and cute and we all have a blast. We laugh, the kids sing for him, we clean his dishes, take out his trash, and even walk over to the store and buy him groceries.



Just as we were about to leave he would ask, "Who wants ice cream?" Of course, my kids would all cheer and follow their hobbling grandpa into the kitchen so he could scoop them out some. He would fumble in the sink to find a spoon and would always gripe about how hard it was to get the ice cream out.

After a few visits like this, a few things happened. One, my kids started to expect ice cream and would ask for it the minute we walked in the door, and two, I realized that the poor old spoon great grandpa used to scoop out the ice cream was not cutting it.

I had an idea! I was going to buy him a nice and sturdy ice cream scoop. The amazing part was I actually followed through! The next time we stopped to visit, we unveiled his brand new ice cream spatula. We're not talking some low quality scoop here - it was pretty much the Harley Davidson of ice cream spatulas!. And he was EXCITED.

How would you like to scoop out some ice cream with one of these puppies? That's right!

It was one of the times in life when you do something you feel like you should, and it makes you feel wonderful. But I never imagined the impact it would have on that old man. Every time after that, whenever we'd go over to his home and line up for ice cream, he'd pull out his sturdy ice cream spatula, look at me and say with a smirk, "You got this for me, huh."

This small event in my life helped me realize that I don't need to change the world. That's a pretty lofty goal and not within my reach. My new goal? Change the world for someone. As small and insignificant as my efforts were, it meant the world to great grandpa. The cool thing is, I'll never truly understand the full impact of what I did, but every time I think of him and this ice cream spatula, I'm reminded of Mother Theresa, who captured the essence of this story when she said:

Labels: kindness, love, service

posted by Ben Arkell @ 7:00 AM 11 Comments

Random Acts of Kindness

I'm sure we've all heard of the phrase "random act of kindness". I'm sure we've all participated in random acts of kindness. There are countless things we do every day on a whim that reflect the good nature of people. Whether it's holding the door for someone, smiling at a little child, allowing someone to move lanes in front of you - there are many opportunities for these kinds of acts, and I encourage them.

Recently I've been in a spiritual slump. I haven't felt good about my relationship with God, and most of it has been due to the fact that my prayers have barely been reaching the ceiling. This is because I haven't really had anything specific to pray for. Has that ever happened to any of you? When I don't have specific things to pray for, I can't as easily see God's hand in my life, so I decided to change my prayers.  I decided to wake every day and ask God to lead me to someone who needed my help. I no longer wanted to serve him and his children randomly, I wanted him to lead me to the people who were asking for his help. What a week it has been!



Let me just say that God is very interested in the lives of all of his children and he wants to bless everyone. However, he needs our help. He needs people who want to be instruments in his hands. He needs people who say to him, "I want you to use me today to bless the world".

I wrote this brief poem that expressed how I was feeling this past week.

I don't want to bless a stranger
I don't want to give alone
I want to give to someone
That God needs me to know

I don't want a random chancing
Not just any passerby
I want to find the seeker
To answer his suffering cry

I bow my head and bend my knee
Each morning when I wake
God lead me to the one in need
Care for this soul I'll take

I want to be thy servant
Not wandering by chance
I want to share thy love today
I want to be thy hands

Thanks to all of you who have a desire to care for others and ease the burdens of those around you. Check out this amazing video. I hope my children grow up with a desire to be like this young woman.

Labels: God, helping, kindness, prayer, service

posted by Ben Arkell @ 10:42 AM 3 Comments