Ripples in the Pond

“It was a cold but sunny January Day. The surface of the parking lot and the sidewalk was snow covered an just a little slippery. I was standing contemplating the step up to the sidewalk wishing I had brought my cane from the car when I saw a hand extended to me. It belonged to an elderly gentleman. I thanked him for ‘the helping hand’ and we chatted pleasantly as we both went into the pharmacy, he to find his wife and me to pick up a prescription.”

It was just a small, unimportant encounter that lasted only a few minutes. But I found myself reliving it over and over again in the days and weeks that followed. It made me smile, that simple, unimportant event. I might well say it made my day! Unfortunately he doesn’t know what a lift he gave me just when I needed it most.

I hear people all the time saying, “I want to do something to make the world a better place but what can I really do? Nothing !” And yet by the simple gesture of offering me hand, this gentleman changed my world ~

Do we look to hard at finding some important difference to effect? Why do we feel that only those great differences count or even that they somehow count more? Have we not thrown a pebble into a pond and seen the ripples from that one small pebble moving out to the edges?

The writer of the Gospel according to Matthew quotes Jesus as saying in Matthew 22:39 “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” Nothing is said anywhere in the scriptures, that I am aware of, that the more important the action is, the better it is. All are equal as an expression of loving our neighbour.

Unfortunately for this man, he will never know that he brightened my day and the day of those I subsequently came in contact with, only that he brought a smile to my face. I would like to be able to tell him, but I can’t.

The small, insignificant action that expresses our ‘love’ for others can have an effect that we are totally unaware of, just like the small pebble tossed in a pond. Sometimes we can let the giver know of the change it brought about in us, but more often we can’t.

We live in a society where the bottom line is all important … where results are measured as success. Building a school in Africa - that surely must be what Jesus meant by loving our neighbour! But so is giving someone a hand-up a curb.

Who has showed you this unconditional love lately? And more importantly perhaps, were you able to let them know the difference they made?

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