A Simple Gesture

A Simple Gesture

Keep on loving each other as brothers and sisters. Don’t forget to show hospitality to strangers, for some who have done this have entertained angels without realizing it! Hebrews 13:1-2

Many people might consider my grandmother Mama Farley just a simple mountain woman like countless others who raised a family during the early part of the twentieth century. But stories of her faith in the Lord and her compassion toward those she called “pitiful souls” have affected several generations.

During the Great Depression of the 1930s, when men roamed the countryside looking for jobs but settling for handouts, Mama often fed strangers at her table. As she heaped the bounty of her hillside garden onto the plates of despondent men, she knew they needed her encouragement that the Lord had not forgotten them as much as they needed the food.

One afternoon Mama Farley stepped into her garden just as a traveler hungrily bit into a plump tomato he had pulled from the vine.

As Mama watched the juice run down the man’s chin, she quietly said, “You come on to the house. That’ll taste better with the chicken and dumplings left over from noon dinner.”

The man gratefully followed.

Today, we don’t have strangers appearing at our doors asking for food, and unfortunately, with the modern crime rate we’d worry if we did, but we still have numerous opportunities to display God’s love to those who are hurting.

Where should we begin? With the next person we see. —SANDRA

Lord, the world’s overwhelming number of pain-filled situations depresses me. How can I possibly make a difference when there are so many needs? Isn’t it like drawing an eyedropper of water out of the ocean’s vastness? But then I go back to Mama Farley’s example. She couldn’t solve the problems resulting from the Depression, but she could offer food and encouragement in the midst of them. She made a great difference by offering the little she had. Help me to do the same.

Decisions must be made in the integrity of the heart before God with an unselfish attention to our brother’s good and the glory of God.

—ELISABETH ELLIOT, MISSIONARY, AUTHOR, AND SPEAKER