It was after one person too many had said they never read the church newsletter, that I decided to write about what it’s like to pour hours of time into putting words on a paper that’s read today and trash tomorrow. Writing, I wrote to the church, is a lesson in humility, because a lot of writing is neither read, nor remembered.

Several days later, I stopped in on a retired community activist who had advanced her many causes through a home-published newsletter.

“I really enjoyed what your article this month,” she said, “but I have couple bones to pick with you. You misspelled three words, left a word out of a sentence, and then you made a punctuation error.” She handed me her copy of our newsletter, and said: “I circled them, so you could see what I mean.”

Her red ink told the tale: Writing is a lesson in humility, because someone always reads what you wrote. Philip Yancey, a writer I like to read, once said that there is nothing more humbling than discovering that the words he wrote on a page have made found their way into someone’s heart, and changed their life. It is humbling, he observed, to discover that a word you have worked to craft from your heart could touch the heart of another so far away.

Conversations can work that way, too.

An online post, a friendly word, even talk at church can change a life.

You may be the first memory of Jesus carried by the child who greets you in the church parking lot.

The words you say, the attitude you convey, the look you cast toward a soul on the sidewalk in front of the church may be the grace God sent you to give, a blessing that a passerby will remember forever.

The smile on your face may be the one kind memory of God that gives hope to a broken life. The look in the eye, your listening ear might be the first time a God seeking soul remembers as God hearing his or her prayer.

You never know how you will impact the people you meet. But this much is sure, the Bible says: “Gracious words are a honeycomb, sweet to the soul and healing to the bones.” (Proverbs 16:24)

 

Your Pastor,

Skip Spangler