Day 111 of Your Year to Wellness; What Can You Do

Jeanine and I hard at work

For Every Need a Purpose and Every Purpose a Need

My sister/manager Jeanine is an amazing woman. She has a very complex and demanding job. She coordinates and conducts the selection and scheduling of my work with finesse and compassion; sending me to places where there is a good fit. Jeanie understands that work is much easier when it’s done in Purpose and Love.

The way she does her job is amazing on its own, but then there is her side job. We often joke about the fact that it takes Jeanine 2 hours complete a 20 minute drive but there is a reason. Whenever she sees a woman with young children, or an elder standing in the heat, cold or rain waiting for a bus or walking with grocery bags, Jeanine pulls over and gives them a ride. Sometimes the surprised traveler will tell her that they have to go very far, but Jeanine says “That’s okay, get in, it’s hot.” The person is always grateful and often they make a comment about how their faith has been restored.

Jeanine never brags or tells you about her underground activity; in fact I found out about it by accident. One day, I happened to be on the road when I saw her picking up these “strangers.”

I called her right then and there and asked her what she was doing. Jeanine laughed and told me that she was grateful for her car; so grateful that she decided to share it with others. She said that the women she picked up reminded her of herself when she had to walk in difficult weather with kids and groceries. I called her Harriet Tubman and told her that she was my hero.

I’m not advocating that we all do what Jeanine does, but today, I am asking a simple yet profound question; “What can you do?”

People say, “If I win the lottery I’m going to give some to those in need.” We all have won the lottery in some way or another.

For every need, there is a person with a purpose and for every purpose there is a person in need. Are you willing to go out of your way to do for someone else what you wished others would have done for you?

I used to take pictures of single moms posed with their kids. The pictures were always beautiful and much better than the ones you buy from Sears. It was my way of doing for others what my mother could not afford to do. I have no childhood photos, no pictures posed on my mother’s knee; we simply could not afford it. So I would take pictures of other single moms and their kids so they would have the memories I wish I could have. Life has gotten more hectic and I don’t take those pictures anymore but I’m wondering why I don’t.

Today, find a way to give to others what you at one time longed for.

Like Jeanine says, no matter how tired, or lacking or frustrated she may think she is, when she gives those families a ride, the mother is always grateful and the child grows up knowing that on that day someone cared.

Find the thing that you can do and do it.

Be you, be well, be the Purpose

Bertice Berry, PhD.

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