Serve
with Kindness
“I
expect to pass through life but once. If therefore, there be any kindness I can
show, or any good thing I can do to any fellow being, let me do it now, and not
defer or neglect it, as I shall not pass this way again.”-William Penn
I’m sure you know at
least one. You know who I’m talking about…that person with the heart of gold
who loves to give to others. He or she usually has a job, a family and many
things to do but still manages to carve out a huge block of time to help
others.
My mom was one of those
people…ask anyone who knew her. When she wasn’t the busy mom to me and my four
siblings or the amazing pastor’s wife to my dad, she could be found doing
something kind for someone else. She didn’t work outside our home but she was
constantly involved with making the lives of others better.
At her funeral I heard
someone say, “She was the kind of person who treated everyone the same. It
didn’t matter who you were, she could make you feel like you were
important.” She could do that because
she was kind to everyone she met and had a heart that wanted to serve.
As an observer of her
life and the recipient of many lessons she taught, I know I am a blessed
person. There were many times when she showed me how to be kind to others. I
remember one time in particular.
I was only about twelve at the time and we
lived in a small railroad town. The parsonage we lived in was next to the
church and only about a block from the thirteen tracks, train station and old
roundhouse. It was a time in America when men could still jump in a boxcar and
ride for miles. My brothers and I called them hobos…today they would be called
homeless or displaced people.
When the trains would
stop in town the hobos would jump out of the boxcars and go looking for food.
Our house was usually the first place they came to. Back then, the preacher’s
house was the community food pantry…but mom didn’t just hand them a sandwich or
a can of beans. She told them what time supper would be served and to come back
then. They were served the best we had and I grew up knowing that those in the
world who were not as fortunate as me were still loved by the God who created
them. I heard my mom tell them that when she invited them to come to church
with us.
I sat at her dinner
table for eighteen years and watched her. As a pastor’s wife she was hostess to
hundreds of people and each person, rich or poor, intelligent or uneducated
left her table feeling like they had benefited from her love.
The definition of community
service is this; “donated
service or activity that is performed by someone or a group of people for the
benefit of the public or its institutions.”
For me, it defines my mom. She didn’t wait around for a committee to be
formed or funds to be raised to help someone else. She did it on her own, one
on one. It can still be done that way today.
In our community there are many individuals
and charitable organizations whose purpose it is to help others. They are all
people like my mom who just want to make the lives of others better.
There are some verses in the Bible
that instruct us to serve others. James 2: 14-17 says this: “What
good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?
Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking
in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and
filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?
So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
We through
life only once and I’m sure God expects that one run to be used to show
kindness to others.
© 2012 Brenda J. Young
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