Dallas County Living Well Magazine January/February 2018 | Page 28

The Gift of
Generosity
By Georgia Smith-Lyle, MA, LPC-S
I
have the opportunity of knowing a young man whose heart of
generosity spoke volumes to me. He had such a generous and
giving heart for people he would meet who were homeless and
had no place to go and who didn’t know when their next meal
would be.
One story was told of how this young
man picked up a homeless man from
the roadside one day and befriended
him. He spent an hour or so with the
homeless man getting to know him a
little. The generosity of giving of our
time is valuable to others, particularly
those who are less fortunate in not
having many friends. This was the first
way the homeless man began to feel
special…someone actually stopped
to make time for him. After spending
a little time, the young man took the
homeless man to the grocery store for
groceries which were much needed
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by the homeless man. The young man
did not judge the homeless man by
assuming be was a drug addict or
had some kind of mental breakdown.
The homeless man was accepted in
his condition…not for what he looked
like or where he lived at the time. The
young man’s heart was moved with
compassion to help someone who
was obviously less fortunate than him.
He spent time and money on this one
homeless man.
I’m sure the homeless man was thank-
ful and touched by the generosity of
DALLAS COUNTY Living Well Magazine | JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018
the young man, but the one affected
the most by this act was the young
man. He still tells the story to this day
about how impacted he was by the
life of the homeless man. The impact
for both these lives was love through
a heart of generosity. This young man
is my younger son and the day he did
this for the homeless man taught me
more about the gift of generosity.
Another story that really hits home
is about me. There was a time in my
college days I lived in an apartment
alone. I was going through a diffi-