“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.”
This quote is by Henri Nouwen, who was a Catholic priest, theologian, writer, and professor.
Henri Nouwen’s words are meaningful to me because they serve as a reminder that what we might consider to be small things we do each day do make a difference. It can be easy to fall into the trap of thinking that unless we accomplish something that resolves major societal issues or that helps many people that there is nothing we can do to make a positive difference in our world. Nouwen reminds us that the words we speak, the smile, the offers of help—each of these does make a difference, does bear fruit. Our words and actions help the people with whom we interact, and those words and actions help us as well.
After reading Nouwen’s quote, I thought about ways that people made my life nicer in the past few days. My daughter texted me a photo of my little grandson and told me she loves me. Coworkers greeted me when I arrived at my job. A friend thanked me for helping her. Someone with whom I work was understanding when I told him about a mistake I had made. A person I don’t know held a door open for me. All were relatively small acts of kindness and none were required to be done. But because the people involved chose to do them, positive energy was added to our world. And I was given the message that I have value and that each person cared about me at some level.
Some of the other ways we can express that “little bit of love” Nouwen refers to are listening as someone shares a difficulty they’re dealing with and not jumping in with advice, expressing gratitude, taking a deep breath when something is frustrating us and having the self-discipline to not respond rashly but instead taking a few minutes to consider a healthy way to deal with the source of the frustration, and offering to spend some time with a friend’s children when it’s clear the friend needs some quiet time. These are just a few of many possibilities.
As Nouman says, trust that our giving of ourselves in these various ways does matter. And also remember that our ability to do so is a gift from our Creator. Trust in that gift.