Bear with me here. I was in church this morning, head bowed in prayer as I listened to the minister. As he spoke this sentence, my head snapped up. I scrambled to silently reach down the pew to grab a pencil and scribble his words onto my program. "God often uses the obscure and less obvious people to do his work. We are not |
Wow.
These words played in my mind for the rest of the service, making it hard for me to concentrate on the sermon to follow. But I was inspired at the thought of these words-- that ordinary can lead to extraordinary.
Often, we are called to do things in simplicity, I was told. But these small actions have the potential to add up, leading to extraordinary results. Remember my recent post on the power of a simple hello? We don't know where our simplest of actions can lead, but we know that our smallest and simplest of actions can be life changing.
This made me think: how would this play into a legacy? As I sit in meditation, I often think of my mother, who I lost just over two years ago. I think of the legacy that she left behind, of how every time I think of her, I feel the love and selflessness she demonstrated in each day of her life. Every little pat on my arm. Every little look of love. Every little word of encouragement. Over the course of my 27 years with her, my mother's simplest of actions are what formed her legacy that remains with me today in her physical absence.
Today, I reflected on my own legacy. "What would I like total strangers to hear about me one day when I'm gone?" I wondered. And I immediately knew: "She was kind."
We may not know the plans in store for our lives-- we may not know the impact our actions will have. And that's all the more reason to be kind. It's all the more reason to delight in the simple, random acts that we face each day. These ordinary circumstances can lead to extraordinary results... and what a wonderful legacy that will create.