appletonk's Page

Today I was able to take time to talk to my friend online. I hardly ever see him online, so I sent him a email asking him how he is doing, and a couple seconds later he popped up on chat. It turned out he had a lot on his mind, and I was glad to be able to talk to him today...I think just being available can be such a gift to people. It was also a gift for me to know I could offer him the chance to just talk about whatever, and to know that I actually had some useful advice to give him :p.…

My three gifts over the weekend were a email to a friend I hadn't talked to in a while, asking him how things were going, another email to a friend, and...something else that i forgot haha. I really need to post every day while the memory is fresh.

One of my friends replied to my email already and it we ended up having this really good discussion about our future plans. It really forced me to get clearer on what exactly I want for the future, instead of just floating along. I…

Today really showed me how easy it is to get caught up in the daily "stuff" that has to be done, and how easy it is to forget about giving. 

I was saved by my wife asking me if I could give her a massage at 1 am! Suddenly I remembered the giving challenge, it was like a poke from the universe.

Part of my church's mantra is "living for the sake of others," and even though I grew up in that culture how easy it is to just get caught up in the day to day cycle of…

I remember a story I heard at church a few weeks back. This guy was told us how he was going through a tough time financially, he was just married and things weren't going as well as he hoped in the money department. 

Well things got really tough so he decided finally to visit this financial "guru / expert" he heard about who lived nearby. The very first the guru asked was "are you tithing?"

He admitted that things had been so tight that he had been skipping…