People Matter
“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
John 13:34-35
It is a blessing to be in a relationship, especially where there is a mutual appreciation of friendship. God blesses us in and through the people He puts in our lives. Sometimes relationships last only for a moment, a season, an occasion, or a lifetime.
What are the times that you have felt so blessed by God because of someone He has put in your life? God’s blessings happen on a daily basis, and it is good!
There are so many instances when I have been wonderfully blessed by a comment a friend has made. For instance, one summer I was coordinating our Children’s Summer Ministry program. I went around asking everyone, even newcomers, if they would help with the Children’s Summer Ministry program. One day, shortly after my friend had said she could not help with the children’s program, she told me she changed her mind and wanted to help. I was pleasantly surprised. When I asked her why she had changed her mind, she said, “Because we are friends!” She told me that she had prayed about it and that because I had asked her that should be enough of a reason for her to want to help. Her response that we were friends really blessed me.
Even on occasions, when there is no previous relationship, God uses us to bless others.
I remember 6 years ago, before my sister Patty passed away, she told me about a friend of hers that had just lost her baby boy. I cannot even imagine the devastation her friend must have felt. I asked Patty for her friends e-mail address so I could let her know that I was praying for her. Just recently, I lost my sister Patty, and shortly after I received an e-mail from the same friend. Her friend shared a prayer with me and expressed the same sympathy I had shared with her six years earlier. I sat there reading her e-mail with tears in my eyes, both for her kind words, praying for me in my time of need, and for the fact that she kept my e-mail from six years ago. This meant the world to me and I will forever be blessed by this wonderful stranger whom I have never met except by e-mail. I still have her e-mail too, but most importantly, I carry it in my heart!
The seemly insignificant things we do are really not insignificant at all. Everything we do affects another person in some way. Let us love one another, as Jesus loves us, that others may see Christ's love though us!
