Love is... stepping out (Week 50)

For me, stepping out of your comfort zone is a huge sacrifice, but to do it for someone else, especially a child, it is so worth it. We did that this morning by meeting up with a great kid, that we had never met and went Christmas shopping together!
Today I was honored to be a part of Shop with a Cop in our area. This is an amazing community project put on by the Fraternity Order of Police to where they choose needy kids in the area and Police Officers get to take them shopping.
It was simply amazing this morning to drive up to Walmart and walk in to about 50 cops and spouses in uniform, waiting to serve their community in a different way. We had our brief and I was so excited to hear how they were going to organize everything this year. First of all every child has a $100 spending limit that we were responsible for keeping track of. $80 had to be spend on NEEDS (shirts, pants, socks, underwear, shoes, toothbrushes, deodorant, etc) and the other $20 was to be spent on toys. I absolutely loved this idea because not only did they get something that was for fun but they got the items that were really NEEDED.
So we all stood outside as the bus dropped off the excited kids. It was simply awesome to see these kids get all excited to spend time with cops. Not all of them have the best perception of cops so to be able to spend time with them in a giving way, was a great community project. Jonathan stepped right up and got our kid and we were on a mission.
First thing he said was his name and then "cool taser!" :) He was great, he knew what he needed right away and we were off to get him his items! We got hoodies, sneakers, socks, underwear, undershirts, toothbrush, deorderant and then 2 toys! He was so gracious to what we were able to get and how if we got one more thing we had to trade for something else in the basket. The entire time, he was talking about himself, his school and his family. Of course with respect to him and his family I didn't take any pictures but it just melted my heart to see my husband in uniform leaned over a cart of clothes, while chatting with a little 2nd grader like this was an every day thing!
Afterwards we stopped by McDonalds and grabbed an early lunch and just got some more time to chit chat with the kids. This was just such an amazing experience for me and for Jonathan, it just felt so good to be a part of such a fantastic project. The Caller grabbed some great photos of the event that you can see at http://www.caller.com/photos/galleries/2011/dec/08/shop-cop/57408/#section_header
So what I meant by stepping out of our comfort zone was, I didn't know what our kid would be like and if he was even going to enjoy shopping with Jonathan and I. But if we, and all those other cops, didn't put ourselves out there to just be a servant then these kids, and we, would not have had such an amazing morning. So take a moment and see what you can do today to help someone out, even if it makes you uncomfortable!