"I hope I can be doing this when I am your age." That is something I get all the time when I am being passed on the run of a triathlon. Perhaps, it is inspiring? Perhaps it is a testament to the fruits of long-term perseverance? Perhaps seeing some old dinosaur plugging along at turtle's pace lifts the spirit and brightens the hopes of others? Perhaps, it helps make their day.
The other night I visited my 99 year old mother in the nursing home. Upon leaving, as we hugged, she patted me on the back and told me she was so glad I came. "You made my day." What a great thing to consider that my meager love offering of time could make someone's day. My, what power for good, for engendering hope must we possess to make another's day better. Yet, how many days in the lives of others have I left unmade. How many times have I neglectful, consumed with my own race; making my own day; my own ego? How many opportunities to impact for good have I squandered? I pray that at the end of it all, I will have made more days in the lives of others than I have neglected.
Service is the virtue that distinguished the great of all times and which they will be remembered by. It places a make of nobility upon its disciples. It is the dividing line which separates the two great groups of the world—those who help and those who hinder, those who lift and those who lean, those who contribute and those who only consume. How much better it is to give than to receive. Service in any form is comely and beautiful. To give encouragement, to impart sympathy, to show interest, to banish fear, to build self confidence and to awaken hope in the hearts of others, in short –to love them and to show it---is to render the most precious service.
Bryant S. Hinckley
This was a good reminder to me. I forget how meaningful small acts of kindness, even something as simple as offering a smile, can mean so much. People are throbbing with pain, loss, fear all around us. We have hope to offer...why do we not?
ReplyDeleteCelia