Smile Ministry - Encouragement Café - August 4, 2014

Smile Ministry

Café Menu for Monday, August 4, 2014

Today’s Special is: We Are Blessed So That We May Bless Others

Carefully prepared just for you by your friend, Britta Lafont

Main Ingredient:

Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up

Romans 15:2 ESV

Entrée:

My second child was born at the Keesler Air Force Base Hospital while my husband was on the other side of the world in Okinawa, Japan. He returned, in the middle of a cold rainy night, 6 weeks later.

Less than a year later, Hurricane Katrina hit our area. A month later my husband went on his second deployment, this time to Guam. I had two children in diapers at a time when the grocery stores didn’t have milk and the gas stations didn’t have fuel. I sold our house and moved out two days before Christmas that year.

By New Year’s Eve, I was relocated to our next duty station in San Antonio, TX. It would be four more months in Guam before my husband would see our new home in a wonderfully unique metropolis. San Antonio was the biggest city I’d ever called home. Back then my phone had no GPS, so I had a drawer full of Mapquest maps: one to get to Target, one to get to the grocery store, one for the doctor’s office, one to church...  

My shell-shocked children would wail until the church nursery workers came to get me. Every week. So eventually we stopped going altogether. There were weeks and weeks when the only grown up conversation I had was with the cashier at Walmart. There were broken down cars and emergency room visits and birthdays to celebrate; and we were all alone.

God never wastes anything. After these lean years, I understand that the elderly lady at church might not get a hug or handshake all week. I have the privilege of sharing God’s loving touch with her. The chatty shopper in the produce aisle might just need someone to stop for a minute and talk about the weather or the price of strawberries. I don’t always have cash to share with the homeless man at the intersection, but I try to give him a bottle of water and a smile into his eyes.

A smile ministry is a great thing to share with your children. Meeting someone’s eye and giving them a smile costs nothing, but to the right person, it can be priceless. We are blessed to be a blessing to others.

Take Out:

You never know what kind of pain another person might be walking through when you meet them. Sometimes your smile is the best way to share God’s love, so use it often. It really is the gift that keeps on giving!  

Dessert:

Dear Lord, help us to take the time to notice other people. Help us to remember that You send us out into the world to share Your love. Help us to be salt and light wherever we go. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

© 2014 by Britta Lafont. All rights reserved.

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