Fill the Baskets

Halloween wasn’t too long ago and you might have seen a friendly ghost or a couple wicked witches wandering up to houses to trick-or-treat. Who still wishes that they were young enough to go trick-or-treating? I know I sure do. I remember stashing candy for weeks and hiding it from the rest of my family. The way I measured my Halloween success was seeing how much candy filled up my bucket. The more I had, obviously the better.

Now that I am old enough to be the one handing out candy, I have the opportunity to see the smile on everyone’s faces as I fill their trick-or-treat bucket. But why does this just have to happen on Halloween? Why can’t we always strive to fill someone’s basket and make them happy? After having the opportunity to attend National FFA Convention, I listened to Trey Elizondo’s retiring address about “Love Is”. The message I took away was that we ALL have the ability to help others, or fill their baskets.

Every single person has a basket, and it needs to be filled. Some people might require different types of love or acts of kindness than others. Each of us have a responsibility to try and fill everyone’s basket in some way. This may look different for each person. Perhaps you work at a restaurant, and simply sharing your smile with costumers is your way of filling their basket. Or perhaps you work on a farm, and you put every ounce of effort you have into your job. The people that will benefit from your hard labor, is having their basket filled by you. It is always easy to fill our frie

nd’s baskets and give them what they need. However, we should try and fill other’s baskets who are very different from us. We may be the only ones who have what they need. To truly make this world a better place, we need to start by helping people. People helping people ripples out to make a big effect.

Embrace the power you have as an individual. You can make the difference in someone’s day. Everyone needs something. It could be laughter, a hug, a deep life conversation, or even just a smile. You can fulfill that something for each and every person. Fill their baskets, and you might just find that yours are being filled as well.

Living to serve,Marie Reveles