One day, my little one, my Biruk, (I think he was fifth grade; he is now 10th grade), he came and handed me an envelope.
“What is this, yenei mare (means, “hun”)?”
He smiled and said, “Open it, Mom!”
I opened it and found seven pieces of paper, written on them, “I will be your servant today for the whole day. Just let me know what you want me to do for you.”
I read one, then the next one and then the next one. Then he smiled and said, “Mom, these are seven coupons. You can pick one coupon a day, whichever day you want and you give it to me and I will be your servant for the whole day that day in whatever way you want me to serve you.”
Yeah! I was extremely excited, not so to get his help but those tiny pieces of papers spoke love and care to me. I was very happy! I hugged and kissed him.
The thing is, I still have those pieces of paper and I have never used them.
Do you know why? They’ve already communicated so much love and care with me that I didn’t need to use them.
I learned that day about the power of a simple gesture of love and care when it comes from the people we live with. Yeah, most of us are good at surprising others with a simple or spontaneous gesture of love but not the people who matter to us the most.
The simple gesture can be as simple as saying; “I prayed for you this morning so God’s favor may rest on you,” or as big as saying “I will be your servant today for the whole day. Just let me know what you want me to do for you.” Yeah, we usually say that to our pastors, “Just call me whenever you need me,” but not to our spouses who have big part in our lives.
Well, how do we learn to be good at giving this good gesture to our loved ones? Simple! By training ourselves to do it regardless of our feelings and emotions. Then before we know it, giving simple gesture of love to the people who live with us becomes our second nature.
When we choose to do it to people who live outside our home but not to the people who live with us, we show to God that we are good actors. And God doesn’t want actors but disciples who are faithful in small things (loving first those two or three or more people who live with us before we love others). This is the fundamental spiritual principle we need to get under our belt, being faithful first in small things (Matthew 25:23).
Whatever a spiritual discipline we need to have, we need to train ourselves up first in our home. We have to get it right there before we find ourselves trying to do it outside of our home.
Hmm! Very convicting, isn’t it? It is for me. May God help us all! ///