Spreading joy

I found my favorite blog a few weeks ago.  It's "Color Me Katie".  The night I found it, I literally spent hours looking through every post.  It is filled with so much color and happiness.  I love it and it inspires me!!!

I simply adore her blog because she just does so much fun stuff that brightens the world like:

Floating cute rubber duckies in dirty post rain puddles

Leaving sweet notes for people to find

And buying a bouquet of flowers to give to other ladies

I want to do all of these things!  I just love each and every one of them.  It is the last one that is my favorite though.  I absolutely love the idea of going around brightening peoples day by giving them a flower.  How wonderful!

Well, I received the opportunity to spread joy through flowers the other day.  On Mother's day my church gave a long stemmed rose to each of the ladies at our church.  After the last service of the day, there were dozens and dozens of roses leftover.  I remembered the inspiration I received from Katie's blog and inquired about what was going to happen with the leftover flowers.  I asked if I could take a bunch and pass them out - kind of a spontaneous outreach.  Of course, I was given the go ahead.  So, my friend Terri and I gathered a bucket full of roses and some church cards and went to the Alexandria Waterfront to spread some love.

Ahhhh!!!  It was my favorite thing!!!  Words can't describe the joy that it brought me to see the look on a woman's face for receiving a free rose.  We were able to tell some about church, and tell some that they were lovely, and put a smile on so many faces.  

My favorite was this little girl about 7 or 8 years old.  When I offered her a rose, the smile that came across her face absolutely melted my heart.  Then she shyly dipped her head with that cute smile across her face as she walked on with her family.  Soooo cute!!!  

There were a few others that really stuck out to me.  The Asian girls sitting on the bench, the guy that took some roses to deliver to the gals in Starbucks, the Muslim lady that recognized that God was thinking of her, the waitresses on their dinner break and the smile that crossed their face.  

My prayer is that each of the precious women we gave a rose to felt special, lovely, and loved.  It was such a fun little outreach.  I wonder if I could make this a weekly thing :-)

...and sometimes when a rose with brown spots comes up, you can use it to bring a little bit of beauty to something smelly and ugly ...

...like a trashcan :-)