it's the little things

I just finished reading a novel that included several Amish characters-what a lifestyle!  The discipline it must require to deliberately deny yourself of so many things we "Englishers" take for granted every day is astounding.  Forgiveness, selflessness, and peace surround these communities.  Throughout the book characters continued to say that they were only human, but it's so easy to see them as angels or saints. 

In a strange way related, a friend recently sent me an email of an eyewitness to Austria's seemingly being hypnotized by Hitler.  Her account mapped out the slow, slow takeover-such that no one ever blinked an eye.  But by the end, they were obviously doomed.  And she wrote of history I had never heard about in the time after the war.

I am humbled this week to grasp how little I know about so much.  I try every at every opportunity to do something kind for another soul, and I know that I am storing up my treasure in heaven--but my minute-to-minute life does not always scream out Jesus' name.  I realize that my job here on earth right now is to prepare this small family's next generation for a future in which they will affect circumstances.

I heard a quote recently that spoke to me:  You are the only bible some people will ever know.

My prayer is for peace and contentment in the knowledge that it is in the small, sometimes unseen acts that we are most often smiled upon by God.