Often when we think about almsgiving, we just think about money. However, like fasting, almsgiving can be much more.  Just like the way that personal habits accumulate in our life that lead us away from achieving our goal, the same can be true about the way that we focus our giving.  Maybe during a particularly stressful or busy time in your life your focus shifted from others to only yourself without you even knowing.  Almsgiving is an opportunity to refocus our lives and look outside of ourselves. Yes, one easy way is to give money, but almsgiving can take different forms.

Examine your life and see if there is anything that you do that is purely for the sake of others.  We often think about the less fortunate, and we should, but sometimes we need to look right at our own families. It can be as simple as visiting a grandparent, writing a message of gratitude to a person who has impacted your life, or simply checking in on a friend.

Think about a baseball team or a group of coworkers. Each member must think about how they contribute to the good of the whole team. Almsgiving could be sending a text to a teammate with some words of encouragement. How would you feel if you received a text from a teammate saying that you did a great job in practice today or a message stating how they appreciate how positive you are or any other positive characteristic they can see? A text is something small that you can give of yourself that is focused on others. Almsgiving might be staying after practice to help clean up, checking in with a coworker whose work load is more than they can handle, or just that simple text message.

The bottom line is, even the smallest thing that you do that fulfills another’s needs (physical, spiritual, emotional, etc.) can lead you to a life focused on giving to others.