A Cup Of Cold Water

One of my cousins sent me an email a few weeks ago with a video from the website Simple Truths. I liked it so much I signed up to be on their email list, and I’ve been getting these great inspiring emails in my in-box on a regular basis. It’s a free service, and though they do have information about things you can buy, it’s not anything that’s a hard sell and the emails are really enjoyable. If you go to their website, www.simpletruths.com, and click on “Join Our Newsletter” at the top of the page, you can get these emails in your inbox too. You can also click on the link for “Inspirational Movies” on the lower right hand side to see the list of the movies you can watch for free. They’re all very short – three minutes – and they cover lots of different topics and ways of looking at things that always leave me with either tears in my eyes – in a good way – or all revved up – in a good way – or both.

There was a story that they sent out last week, and then it came into my email again today in the form of a short movie. It’s from a book by Mac Anderson, “The Power of Kindness.” In the story, a young man is working as a door-to-door salesman to make his way through school. He stops at a house to ask for something to eat, but then decides not to, even though he is very hungry. Instead he asks for a drink of water, but the young woman who answers the door brings him a glass of milk instead because she thinks he looks like he is hungry. When he asks her how much he owes her, she says, “You don’t owe me anything. Mother has taught us never to accept pay for a kindness.” As he walks away, Mac Anderson writes, “He not only felt stronger physically, but his faith in God and man was strengthened also. He had been ready to give up and quit.” Many years later, the young woman becomes ill and the doctors don’t know how to help her. The same young man, now older and a doctor, is called in to treat her. When he recognizes her, he puts all his effort toward saving her life. It is a long battle, but he is able to save her, and when it is time for her to pay the bill, he writes on it, “Paid in full with one glass of milk.” At the bottom of the story, there is this note, “Dr. Howard Kelly was a distinguished physician who, in 1895, founded the Johns Hopkins Division of Gynecologic Oncology at Johns Hopkins University. According to Dr. Kelly’s biographer, Audrey Davis, the doctor was on a walking trip through Northern Pennsylvania one spring day when he stopped by a farmhouse for a drink of water.”

In Matthew 10:42, Jesus tells us, “And if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of my followers, you will surely be rewarded.” God sees our hearts. There are times when we don’t have much to give, but when we give what we can, a kind word, a prayer, a thought, a cup of water, we have no idea how He can multiply what little we have to give when we give it from our heart. There are times when He will have me say something to someone or send them an email or leave them a message, and I am feeling like it’s just not enough because I want to do so much more, but when I have done what He has asked me to do, He’ll say, “You have no idea how much that meant.” God is in our actions when they are actions of kindness and love. He’s in our words when they are words of encouragement and prayer. The Holy Spirit speaks to the spirit and heart of each one of us through the smallest of actions and words if those words and actions are motivated by the power of love.

I was looking up something today and I found a video for the Beatles song “Help!” I know all those songs like they are a part of me – I grew up listening to them and they were some of the first songs I ever heard. “Help! I need somebody, help! Not just anybody, help! You know I need someone, help! When I was younger so much younger than today, I never needed anybody’s help in any way. But now these days are gone, I’m not so self-assured, now I find I’ve changed my mind and opened up the doors. Help me if you can I’m feeling down, and I do appreciate your being round. Help me get my feet back on the ground, won’t you please, please help me. And now my life has changed in oh so many ways, my independence seems to vanish in the haze. But every now and then I feel so insecure, I know that I just need you like I’ve never done before.”

It’s so strange to watch them sing that song when they were so very young. The lyrics are the words of someone who has been through so much, but the music and the way they sing it is so full of life and joy. When we can change our minds in that way, when we can open up the door that we have locked and let other people in to help us, we can have that lightness with our burden too. There are times when we feel that there’s no one we can call on, times like the moment in the story about the future doctor when we are walking on a long and dusty road and we feel like we want to give up and we don’t know how to ask for help. But then we decide we will ask, maybe not asking for what we really need, but we begin to ask for something, instead of food we ask for water, and a kind person who answers our knock on their door gives us more than we ask for. And the more that they give us is not just in the physical thing that they give to us, but it is in the way that they give it, with kindness and love and because they have taken the time to care.

Blessings,

Jannie Susan