These past couple months I have tried to faithfully honor each of my Facebook friends on their birthday by recognizing them on my own wall about how I know them. My goal is to talk about their positive traits, and what they mean to me. This started out as something I wanted to do for THEM but being almost a quarter into the year, I have found that this has become so much more of a blessing for me. Reflecting back on each and every friend thus far I am realizing just how important every action, word, or deed, no matter how big or small, from someone can impact a person's life. Some friends on Facebook are more of acquaintances. Others are friends from childhood or friends of friends. Some are family members and others are really close friends. I just recently wished two of my friends birthday wishes whose simple acts of kindness after I came home from the hospital from having my mastectomy back in '09' are etched in my heart and memory forever. Other friends' examples of strength, honesty, kindness, grace, and compassion have forever helped me want to be better in those areas of my life.
Just within the last hour of me writing this post, I was reminded once again the power of a simple gesture. A couple years ago I was informed of an acquaintance being diagnosed with breast cancer. A friend told me about this person and thought she could benefit from me going to see her, talk to her, share my story (my original blog.) Sometimes being called on like this is so very out of our comfort zone that we might talk ourselves out of doing what it is God is calling us to do. It was easy for me to talk about our story with those whom I knew and on social media (Facebook) but to go talk to someone who I didn't know was definitely an uncomfortable situation for me but after some prayer and asking God for His will I knew I just had to do it. So I did. I printed up my story, drove to her house, knocked on her door, reintroduced myself, and tried to keep things simple and to the point when explaining why I was there. I briefly told her my story and handed her my original blog to read at her leisure but then proceeded to listen to HER initial story of diagnosis. Afterward I gave her a hug, told her I would pray for her and gave her my phone number in case she ever needed anything. A few months had gone by and I didn't hear anything about how things were going. I sent her a card and just continued to pray for her and her family and that all was going well with her and her treatment. Well. Lo and behold, out of the blue Den ran into her husband and one of the first things he said to Dennis was, "Please give your wife a hug of thanks. She was a godsend when we were going through this."
Words, acts of kindness, good deeds.....you just never know how big such small gestures mean to someone else. Sometimes you may do something out of the kindness of your heart and immediately you are thanked. Other times you do it and it comes back to you years later of how grateful someone was. It may be that in your life on earth you will never get reassurance of how your act of kindness affected someone but that shouldn't matter. You need to know your Father in heaven sees. Our goal should be to step out and do. Don't miss out on an opportunity to make a difference in someone else's life. Send that card, make that dinner for someone, buy those groceries for someone in need or visit an acquaintance who received some disturbing news. It really, REALLY makes a difference in someone's life.
