target – Katrina Michelle Russell

My son and I went to Mass the other day for our ashes… much to his protest, and the Priest of the day brought up an interesting take on the whole “Giving up something for Lent” thing.

Now I know that not all of you are Catholic, but I feel like it’s a good message in general. He spoke about how The Bible said to celebrate and worship privately, not to boast about what you are doing to get your accolades. This, to me, speaks to what the Pope said download-9 recently about fake Christians who talk a big game about their Christian values and then treat the poor and other neighbors with complete disregard.

This country has been torn in half in the last year between the Conservative Christian party that wants to “take care of themselves”. They shouldn’t have to help the poor. They work for their money, why should they give it to someone who needs it? They are opposed to helping refugees who are running scared from extremely dangerous homelands. They spend all their time talking about making their “America Great Again” and to Hell with anyone who is different. Last time I checked this was not what Jesus preached… but they’re opposed to abortion… so they can check that box.

But as I mentioned, this priest spoke of Lent and of fasting and giving up something.. he said that it’s not just important to give something up, but to think of those who don’t have and maybe, just maybe, we could give to them. He brought up how when he was a child he was always made to give up candy, which is an understandable thing for a child, but he always felt it was superficial. The point of fasting is to grow closer to God and to truly give of yourself.

I was thinking of myself.. and recently I thought about giving up coffee.. then I realized that was crazy and not going to help ANYONE… but I thought about other habits similar to that. I thought about the fake Christians and their inability to give up what is theirs for someone else. I was thinking how nice it would be if we all saved the money from whatever we gave up, coffee, cigarettes, alcohol, or even shopping at Target for the non-essentials, and taking whatever money we didn’t spend and giving it to a charity of our choice.

I thought what a great thing this could be if we kept it up even after Lent was over. We all images-12 say that we would do more for others if we had more money, but we all have our expensive habits… and if we are really on a tight budget, maybe we could do something like give up TV for the 40 days and actually spend the time volunteering. There is always someone who is in more need than us, and if we are going to give something up, wouldn’t it be great if we could give back, like a real Christian… a real HUMAN BEING should do.

We have all had those days. The days when we had sooo much on our plate, and yet… TV is so much more interesting. Yesterday was one of those days for me. I woke up to a fresh layer of snow on the ground and my 3 year old begging to go out and play. I told him that was fine, but that we needed to run to the store to get him boots first.

That was the last mention of going outside that he made for most of the day. After I got him dressed he asked for TV while I went to take a shower. When I got out he suddenly had no interest in snow.. the TV was way more interesting. To be honest I was glad of this. I will go out and play with him when he want, but I hate the cold. I don’t know why I stay in New England.

So the day progressed and I had so much to do.. but I didn’t. I sat in the living room, played with my son and watched TV.. did I mention COLD OUT. Finally my son started sdff whining for some dinner and I realized that we were out of jelly for tomorrow’s sandwich, so I proceeded to convince the child to run to Target with me.

We still didn’t leave. He needed food, my dog needed to be walked.. it was a good half an hour before we made it out of the house. Thank God. Had we left at any other time we would have missed it.

As I was sitting at a light waiting for the left so that I could turn into the parking lot I saw a pit-bull come come running out and do his business on the side of the road. Now I wasn’t alarmed at first. I waited and watched to see if he went running back to the owner. He didn’t. Instead he went darting out into traffic. Four lane traffic on a dark and slippery night. I knew that he would get hit if I left him there, so I hopped out of my truck and called him over.

He had no trouble getting in my truck, but got a little nervous when I wouldn’t let go of his collar and we weren’t going towards where he knew where is people were. (I was stuck at the light and held his collar to keep him in the front seat away from my 3 year old in the back) He began to get really nervous after a minute and crawled onto my lap in order to get back out of the door.

I finally just ran the light (sorry officer) and pulled my truck into the lot and just stopped halfway in between a bunch of spaces. I managed to get both him and my son out of the truck and walked him to the front of Target and started calling to everyone around if they had lost a dog. People flocked to see the beautiful creature, but no one claimed him. I asked the Target employees to page inside and they said that they did.. and we waited.

I don’t know if they ever did page, but I finally asked the others to hold the dog while I brought my cold 3 year old inside to warm up and looked for the owner myself. I walked images-1 through the front door and again announced, “did anyone lose a pit-bull in the parking lot?”. A man approached panicked asking what color.. brown and white.. it was his. He ran out and put him back in his car and rolled the window up more.

After all of this happened I called my boyfriend and told him of our experience. I told him how I was nervous about taking a strange pit-bull in the car with our son, but that I felt worse leaving him in the street. My boyfriend said that didn’t surprise him seeing as how I lost my dog to our street almost a year ago. He said that he understood the concern about the dog, but also knew that if I had thought the dog was any kind of danger I wouldn’t have done it.

I love that he trusted my instincts. I love that I was at the right place at the right time. I love that I made a difference. I have to remember that day the next time I slack off and start negative talking myself.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not good to live in slacker mode, but it’s worse to kick yourself over a bad day… cuz you never know.. your bad day may end up being being a saving grace for someone else… even if you never know it.

Tag: target

Giving (up) for Lent

Serendipity on a Snow day