"Just" a Call--Not!

Recently a close friend had an experience that took me back in time, to relive my introduction to the significance of "small" things. My friend, who will remain nameless, was struggling with a loss of purpose. Although not seeking to destroy herself, she did start asking God to take her home if her years of service to Him were at an end. In the midst of her prayer, the telephone rang. It was a friend who rarely called, just a few times a year, but she had felt moved to call that very moment to touch base with her friend. The caller had no great revelation about the friend to whom she reached out to, neither did she have significant news to impart, but just that simple moment of contact through an oh-so-ordinary-call with a friend was enough to break the despondency that had threatened to overwhelm my friend.

I couldn't help but marvel at how God had intervened with a "small" thing--and it brought to mind the memory of how God had taught me that no kindness is insignificant in His eyes.

Seven years prior to my first husband's passing (as in going home to Heaven), Steve suffered second and third degree burns on 35% of his body. The probability of death in such an accident is determined by adding the area of burns on the body to the age of the patient. Since Steve was 40 at the time, that number plus 35 (the percentage of his body that was burned) equals 75. That meant that statistically there was a 75% probability of him dying. Although his organs did try to shut down one night, he rallied and, thankfully, God left him to us for seven more wonderful years.

We were in Mexico when the accident occurred. After he was stabilized, missionary friends drove us to the border for treatment. Because I had seen Steve stand on God's word and be healed overnight, I was sure that by the time we reached the border (a four hour trip in those days), God's healing would begin to manifest in his body. It did not. As much as this blindsided me, this did not keep us from praising God for other miracles that worked together to get Steve to the burn unit in Galveston, Texas.

.First was his unremitting feistiness, a positive sign of joie de vivre, an element deemed essential for a good prognosis. Despite having a head grotesquely swollen to the size of a basketball, after we arrived at the ER in Brownsville, he quipped, "Wouldn't you know it? The resident doc is an OB/GYN. Now I can rest assured that there is nothing wrong with my female organs." I wish I had written down all the silly things he said. He kept us in stitches, with such "Stevisms." If I could have put them in a book I would have struck it rich!

Second, as you well know, burns are extremely painful. The staff was amazed that during the time spent under their care he made little use of the porta-morphine box (the one where you push a button and you are immediately injected with some of that pain-alleviating med). That lack of pain had to have been the mercy of God.

Thirdly, an organization that sends planes to help missionaries in need came to our rescue to fly Steve from Brownsville to Galveston. Cloudy/foggy weather conspired to keep us land-locked until a teeny tiny window appeared, just long enough to get him to the needed destination. As soon as they landed, the window disappeared. It was a window God made just for him.

So yes, I did see miracles. But not the one I expected. Steve remained extremely burned. Many surgeries (skin grafts) later segued into 11 months of recuperation, months during which he was plagued by a skin condition that kept his wounds from healing. After being discharged, he went from doctor to doctor for months. None were able to help him. In the eleventh month, he was ministering in Belize when the hand of God touched him and, in one glorious instant, miraculously healed him. But during the time at the hospital, we could not see ahead to that day of restoration. We had to live day by excruciatingly-pain-filled day, clinging to faith alone.

But . . . in the midst of that darkness, there in that hospital, something wonderful happened. We received a deluge of calls, cards--and even visits! In the course of my life I had been grateful for gifts of any kind; but now? The pain-filled present made every kindness take on gargantuan proportions, each a tangible expression of God's great mercy towards us.

I have no words for what those kindnesses meant to us. It was as if a whole new world opened up to us, every single kindness amplified into something indescribably glorious. We stepped through the portal of Christian caring into a never-before-experienced level of heart-felt gratitude. In the midst of pain and darkness the glorious hand of God touched us through His people. They are memories to treasure till the end of my life.

All this to say--don't hold back when you feel a "nudge" to call someone, write to them by text or snail mail, lift them up in prayer. It is "the little foxes . . . that spoil the vines" (Song of Solomon 2:15). Similarly, it is the little things that create greatness. In a world of super-sized everything, we have it in our heads that to be great, things have to be big. Not in God's economy, where Jesus said the greatest should be a servant!

Don't wait for a "big" thing to show how much you love Jesus. Look for the little things. You don't know what one little word of kindness might do. It might make all the difference between devastation and encouragement in someone's pain-filled reality.

Let's be the hands of Jesus to this hurting world.

"And be ye kind one to another" (Ephesians 4:32).