Another Act of Kindness

It was just two wooden stools.  I am not even aware what they were used for.  But there they were, sitting in the fellowship hall of our church.  So Jim came in and pulled one of them over to sit on.  It was pretty shaky so he tried the other one.  It was worse.   I watched him go find another chair that was stable enough to sit on.  I thought that was the end of the story.

But it wasn't.

Today I was in the choir room at church when someone opened the outside door.  And there I saw Jim coming from the parking lot carrying two stools.  He came in, sat them down, looked at me and smiled.

"Now someone can sit on one of these things if they want to.  And it will hold them," he announced.

You probably have guessed what he did.  Yes, he did.  He took those shabby stools home and made four extra leg rails to stiffen the four that was supposed to do the job, re-glued the other joints, cleaned them up, painted them and brought them back for anyone to use if they needed to. They were like two new stools.

What is it that I am trying to say here?  Well, if I had sat on either of them while finding that they needed fixing I would probably have said that I thought someone should fix them and drop it at that.  But Jim took them home and fixed them.  Without being asked to do so.  He did that without telling anyone what he was going to do and returned them without telling anyone what he had done.  It was just a simple act of kindness for which he expected no reward at all.  He didn't even expect a thank you because he didn't tell anyone what he had done.  I would not have known had I not witnessed it without his knowing it.

The little things we do for others come
back to reward us no matter how hard we try to keep it secret.  And you could see the reward Jim had received by seeing the smile on his face.

There was a smile on my face, too.  I was proud of Jim.  And my guess is that God is smiling as well.  We don't have to change the world by doing great things.  We help change the world by small acts of kindness.  Don't you wish we were all a bit like Jim?