Put Love on the List
Last Friday afternoon, my yellow legal pad was a 38-item “to do” list with a 5 pm deadline. Items ranged from finalizing GO Adventures clothing orders to designing Run d’Haiti medals for our events next month. The list went on, but it wasn’t going to get done. No time.
For most of us, our “to do” list is how we manage our home and get results at the office. We schedule and reschedule. We benchmark progress. We check things off. We move on to the next task. It feels tangible. And it can overwhelm us.
But how often does “love” make it onto our “to do” list? It’s a challenge to figure out how to work it in. How long does love take? How do we prioritize love? Is love meant to even be on the list?
Sometimes we need reminders to put love on the list. Mine was on the afternoon of January 8, 2011. I was sitting on a curb on the first day of the Tour d’Haiti—a bike ride where we gave bikes away to orphaned and abandoned kids during the first anniversary week of the earthquake.
Love was the last thing on my “to do” list. I was busy making sure we were on schedule and that everyone was accounted for. But it’s exactly what happened next. I experienced God’s love as the children sang and as our participants played with them while year-old rubble littered the streets. It was love in the ruins. And while the Tour d’Haiti began as a bike ride, it morphed into a wake up call to love and to serve.
As we close out this year and head into the next, I encourage you to live big and put love on the top of your “to do” list. Shake up your schedule, hold your calls and rearrange a few priorities.
Consider one of those new priorities as joining us on the Run d’Haiti or the Tour d’Haiti North in January. These are tax deductible adventures that may have a rational and emotional appeal, but that’s just the beginning. These adventures will be heart changing reminders that love is a simple choice that creates enormous ripples in your life and the lives of everyone around you.
From all of us at GO Adventures, have a blessed Christmas season.
