One Small Gesture, One Healed Heart

One Small Gesture, One Healed Heart

The King will say, “I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!”

Matthew 25:40

Often left alone during childhood, Trisha gleaned her concept of femininity from the after-school “soaps.” When a suicide attempt in college sent her to counseling, she had to face her longing for motherly direction.

“When my counselor suggested I find someone to take my mother’s place emotionally,” she says, “my first thought was, How do I do that?! Go up to someone in the grocery store and say, ‘Will you be my mother?’ My counselor finally suggested I move in with his family for a week, so I could see firsthand how his wife mothered their children.

“That first night, I listened to her going to the children’s rooms at bedtime to pray with them and tuck them in. When she came into my room to say good night, she actually sat on the bed and offered to pray with me, too. My prayer was pretty short because I was so choked up; nobody had ever done that with me before, but when she tucked the blanket around me and bent down to kiss my forehead, I absolutely lost it. She did more for me in one evening than all of her husband’s counseling ever could.”

Just one woman simply kissing a forehead helped to heal a broken heart.

But if we were to ask a number of average women what each of them could do to influence others, most would be astounded by the question. Often, these are the women who sit in church week after week and feel because they don’t have a public ministry, they couldn’t possibly make a difference. They tend to think along these lines: I can’t get up in front of people. I don’t know enough Scripture. God could never use me; I’m not a missionary.

But these same women, just like the rest of us, already are being used by God every day! As we absorb the Word and spend time with God in prayer, we are empowered to be a friend, to care, to open our hearts and homes, to put an arm around weary shoulders in this hurting world. —SANDRA

Lord, help me to see the difference I make through simple acts of sharing your love. Remind me to trust that those simple acts will have great influence and may even reach into future generations.

Be kind; everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.

—IAN MACLAREN (PSEUDONYM FOR JOHN WATSON, 1850–1907), SCOTTISH AUTHOR AND THEOLOGIAN