During our short lives, God orchestrates many cameo appearances of people who walk in and out of our lives. Often our interactions are brief, and we can’t connect with everyone, but we can make a difference in the lives of a few.
Each interaction allows for laughter, hope, care, love and a listening ear.
It’s funny how ideas and promptings come to us, and it is not uncommon to be reluctant to implement them. My heart and mind have been drawn to “practical little ways” to interact with someone – let them know that I was thinking of them. It is these ideas that become the “shoe leather” of our walk.
Like me, have you wondered if someone is thinking of you during their day? This is a big world and people are busy with their own lives and responsibilities. However, it’s critical to occasionally let others know that they are important to us.
So, how will they know we’re thinking of them and their welfare if we never phone them?
If we’re alert and perceptive, we can see a blessing being displayed and distributed person to person. On occasion I have put God’s blessings into framed categories to better identify where to look for them.
There’s an art and challenge in developing that practice because God’s ways are not our ways. He shows up in the most surprising ways and incredible places.
His touches of love, kindness, thoughtfulness, care, comfort and provision, explode in the most “practical of settings” which most of us miss if we aren’t looking for them.
How often do we often attribute a sunrise, sunset, rainfall or gently falling snow to just the weather! Or perhaps a hummingbird, butterfly or a bee circling and cuddling a flower and call it nature.
Those familiar with the Bible and many of the historical events mentioned therein, we can recall specific events like the parting of the Red Sea which were HUGE. However God still intervenes and touches lives in what may appear tiny but are actually huge!
In our everyday practical living, we can easily miss many opportunities to either “see” or “be” a blessing simply because we don’t pause and consider that God is at work.
I think God wants to lead us into adventures of blessing others, but we often don’t recognize it at first glance. I’m glad He’s into repeating things, aren’t you, because I seldom catch on the first time.
I observed many lovely qualities in my Mother. She has gone “home to heaven;” but her passion for outreach is etched in my memory. Though she felt her life was quite ordinary, and appeared so – on the surface.
Soon after marriage, we moved away – far away – to a different country – Canada. The very cold winters in Calgary were ideal for homesickness to set in. But every week God warmed my heart through my “mailbox!” My Mother wrote me a letter once a week for 30 years – to let me know she was thinking of me.
You may think I’m foolish, but I have kept all those letters as a visual reminder of God’s tenderness to my heart and life.
When was the last time you wrote someone to let them know they were “special to you?”
Mom’s letters were a powerful example of how God uses us in simplicity to touch the lives of others. Yes, I enjoy email, and the internet can be very helpful, but I still yearn for a personal touch – a hand-written note saying, “I’m thinking of you.”
When considering simplicity, I’m grateful how God used Alexander Graham Bell to bless others. If you’ve never read about Bell’s life, you would be amazed at how the telephone was invented.
My Dad loved to grocery shop. He knew nearly all of the prices of the items in their local supermarket and their specific shelf location. His friend, Stanley, would pick up my Dad almost every morning and they would drive to the large grocery store nearby.
This daily routine provided exercise for their legs, heart and billfolds. They knew all the names of the cashiers as well. They turned their excursions into family gatherings.
Stanley’s wife had died many years earlier, and he felt quite alone. The “grocery runs” with my father became a weekly social pattern. What impressed me was that my Mother would phone Stanley “every morning.”
It wasn’t to arrange for a pickup of my Dad, but just to say “hello,” and see how he was doing each morning, or perhaps inquire as to what he had for dinner the prior evening. My Mother would phone Stanley every morning, and she had so faithfully for over 25 years – even after my Dad died.
In 2006 due to health challenges, my Mother came to live with us in Washington State. We had pre-arranged for an Ohio phone number to be incorporated into our phone line so she could conveniently call her friends in Ohio – including this “friend of my Dad’s” every morning for almost three years.
During this time, it was my delight to care for my Mother in my home, and I continued to see her exercise this “touching outreach” to my Dad’s friend who was alone.
While caring for my Mother, my energy and focus was limited to my home and all its responsibilities. There were many times I felt a bit lonely, but God used my Mother’s pattern for reaching out and touching others to spur me on to a new outreach.
Her legacy was about to begin a new journey for me. The morning that my Mom went “home to be with Jesus” was the first morning that I began to phone Stanley myself. My calls to this dear man went on for another four years.
The morning before he died, I was able to pray with him on the phone. The telephone had become a “touching tool of outreach.”
In those times of being alone, God helped me see that I could be a source of love and joy to another, simply by phoning people every day just to say hello and check in on them. My calls seldom go beyond 5 minutes.
God introduced many others to me whom I felt that He wanted me to begin regularly contacting by phone. Some were caregivers, widows or widowers, or –singles facing medical or physical challenges, or simply someone who was alone.
These calls have brought me joy as I entered their lives through the telephone.
Many of friends, with whom I would connect, have gone home to heaven, and I miss them terribly. But every year God continues to give me one or two new people to phone daily – just to say hello and ask about their lives, and how to pray for them.
I’ve found it profoundly meaningful to “forget about myself,” and to invest just a few minutes each day enjoying people and letting them know that they are loved and thought about. Yes, each one has been, and continues to be a “treasure.”
Do you know someone that has perhaps lost a loved one, and is alone a lot and needs a tender touch via your cell phone? Let’s update our “contact lists” with those to whom God leads us to touch on a regular basis.
“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21
Cups of Cold Water 