I had another strange encounter in the grocery store parking lot last night. I was pushing an empty cart back to the cart corral when a gentleman headed in the opposite direction said,
“You have a beautiful smile. Thank you for sharing it.”
I was taken aback. Then came the mental effort of figuring out how I felt about being spoken to that way by a perfect stranger.
- Was he just plain weird?
- Was I weird to be smiling for no reason at all?
- Do I actually have a nice smile?
- Do I know him from somewhere?
…And while this mental battle was brewing, the next thing I noticed was the smile spreading itself across my face completely uninhibited. It was as if my brain was so tied in knots trying to short-circuit that generous compliment, that my face, aware that my brain was too preoccupied to prevent it, got right to work letting the joy spread.
It wasn’t until the next day that I figured out why I had been smiling in the first place. It was these:
Happy Face Balloons!
How can you resist a smile when you have a happy face balloon? I had just loaded 3 of these handsome devils into my car along with an assortment of other treats, and just the idea of what I was planning to do with them was making me smile. Which made a man compliment me. Which made me smile even more.
The Scatter Sunshine Project
During a Sunday conversation with a friend, she said something about her wish that the girls who knew her teenage daughter would “scatter a little sunshine” now and then instead of being so unkind to one another.
The idea intrigued me, and when I found myself with a few minutes of unexpected free time, I decided to see if I was up to the challenge. I headed to the dollar store and found these adorable little guys hanging out near the checkstand. I rounded up a few other yellow items with the intent of having my kids help me “Scatter Sunshine” to some people in the neighborhood. The winter is gray and dreary where we live. It made me feel better just to have all of this color sitting on my kitchen table. The Scatter Sunshine bags were so fun and simple it took longer to take the photo of them than it did to put them together. I added a “Scatter Sunshine Gift tag” made with a cute logo from a church media site–click this link to see it.
The phrase, “Scatter Sunshine” comes from a hymn with text by Lanta Wilson Smith and music by Edwin O. Excell. I think the text from verse 2 is an idea worth repeating:
Slightest actions often
Meet the sorest needs,
For the world wants daily
Little kindly deeds
Now that I’ve had a day to think about it, I’m profoundly grateful to the stranger who told me I had a beautiful smile. That generous thought brightened my whole evening and gave me hope that my small gift would, in return, brighten the day for someone else.
How much joy and comfort
You can all bestow,
If you scatter sunshine
Ev’rywhere you go.
