Chalkwalk 2020

What inspires you? What brings you joy? Are you inspired by the colors of the sun setting on the horizon, the colorful shelf of new books at a book store, a box of paint tubes, brushes, and a blank canvas, or a fresh video game just out on the market? There is inspiration to be found all around you. There is beauty, goodness, and things to notice and enjoy. If you take a moment to look around, you can find things to bring you joy, put a smile on your face, and mayby even spur yourself into action to help others. 

One thing that brings me a lot of joy is helping other people. One of the quickest and easiest ways to do this is by taking a shopping cart for someone who is loading up their car at the grocery store. I can't tell you the number of smiling faces and words of gratitude I have seen and heard by doing this simple act. My daughters even look around now to find someone to do this for when we are out shopping. Unfortunately, this activity is no longer available to me as we are stuck at home. Even if I have to make a run to the store, it is not safe to be hauling carts for others right now. 

However, we have found another safe way to put a smile on people's faces and serve people in our neighborhood. When the weather cooperates, we try to take a walk each day. In our neighborhood, we have no sidewalks, so we walk on the road as our daughters ride their scooters ahead of us. While walking one day, we saw a family drawing with chalk on their driveway. This gave us an idea to chalk up our driveway with messages and pictures people could see and enjoy on their daily walks. We enjoyed doing it so much that we chalked a few neighbor's driveways as well. Hopefully as our neighbors walk around our neighborhood, they can see our messages and see our words of encouragement and home. Maybe they will feel inspired to find ways they can brighten up the lives of people around them.