You may be thinking that sounds great but you’ve never held an important job or been celebrated for anything
That doesn’t matter a bit. Meet my long-ago friend Alice. This tiny, smiling woman–barely 5 feet tall and walking with a cane–saw herself as “nothing special.”
Yet when Alice died, six employees from the local Post Office attended her memorial–in uniform. One stood up to tell how much they all would miss their friend.
“What we get mostly is people complaining about this or that. But when sweet Alice breezed in, we all smiled. She always gave us a lift, just by being her. What’s more, every week or two she brought us a heaping platter of her delicious homemade cookies.
“I asked her once why she did it and she said, ‘Well, I love to bake up my old recipes and I end up with a lot. So I just share the extras. Besides, you people bring me my mail every day, in every kind of weather. This is just me saying, Thanks and God bless you, all of you!’
“She always called out a jaunty Hello to the people working behind the counter, too. I tell you, Alice brought sunshine in with her and every one of us will miss her!”
He blotted his eyes all the way back to his seat.
The small-town newspaper editor spoke next and told how he loved reading Alice’s thoughtful letters. “She always made me think. I am a better editor because I always knew Alice was reading what I wrote.”
After him came the high school principal, “I keep an open file folder labeled ‘Alice’ just to hang on to her notes of encouragement to our teachers and to me. She had no special reason, usually. That was just Alice.”
Next came her neighbor, sniffling and wiping her eyes. “Alice shared everything. Hugs of encouragement. Roses from her backyard. Half a meat loaf. Homemade pie sometimes and of course, her famous chocolate walnut cookies”
Then a young man told how Alice always seemed to sense when he needed to talk.”I don’t remember how we became friends, but she always made time to listen. Sometimes the only thing that kept me in school was knowing Alice was praying for me.
“I guess that’s why the first person I told when I knew I passed my finals was Alice.”
Your life matters more than you can guess
I knew Alice and I promise you she would not have taken cookies to her local Post Office just so some employee would come to her memorial and speak well of her.
Alice was just being Alice and living out what she read and studied in the Bible. She often told our small Bible study group how thankful she was for life.
She counted blessings, big and “small,” as in, “God has blessed me so bountifully! I thank him every day that I can still walk around and my eyes still let me see the beauty in this world God created.”
Alice reminded us nearly every week to lift up people around us. “God created every human being to be one-of-a-kind, so let’s be encouragers. Nobody has an easy life.”
Then she would say, “Every small kindness leaves its mark.”
None of us are “ordinary”
We may suppose we live insignificant lives. Not so!
For instance, if you’re a mom or dad, as you every day interact with your children, you influence how they look at life.
They will see the world through your eyes long before they form an opinion of their own. You write the script for how they think of God, how they view authority and for how they love–or don’t know how to love.
By the way, we parents do not lose our influence just because our children have reached adulthood. Yes, our grown children live their own lives, but most times, they (perhaps secretly) care what we think.
More importantly, they still watch to see whether we live out what we tell them is important.
Whether they see us as friend or critic is up to us, more than to them.
Each of us is like a stone tossed into a lake
Every one of us leaves ripples that travel far beyond ourselves.
Never discount your importance in the lives of the people around you. You matter in ways you may never know. Just as water can wear away stone, so our small deeds, over and over, carry a lasting effect.
If we tuck that point-of-view in the back of our minds we’ll become more aware. More alert for ways we can touch and encourage others along the way.
Alice would say, “Keep your eyes on Jesus. He’s the One who keeps us going and shows us how to live here in our little corner of the world. If we just follow Him we’ll know what to do.”
Here are a couple of Bible verses Alice often repeated–and lived out every day of her life.
“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Luke 6:31
Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing. 1 Thessalonians 5:11
If you and I also make this our way to live, I can’t promise employees from our local Post Offices will attend our memorials, but I am absolutely certain we will bless the people in our lives, in our neighborhood and who knows? Maybe even the world!
May you have JOY in your day-to-day!
Lenore
