by April Terry (personal blog http://faithwarming.blogspot.com)

When my son was seven, we went on a cruise with our family and he spent a lot of time checked into the children’s program.  One night, we picked him up to find an excited look on his face, and he described to us how he had befriended a kid in a wheelchair.  He told me how good it made him feel to be able to push the kid’s wheelchair around the ship as they did activities together.  He brought up that trip again recently still remembering fondly the encounter with the disabled boy, and I asked him about how it made him feel to know that he done something special for others.  He said that it made him feel the best that he had ever felt. 

That’s the thing that is amazing to me.  To realize how much caring for others changes us.  It’s always easier to work only for ourselves, but it’s far more rewarding to do the right thing and do good for others.  Doing good for others changes our perspective and it changes our lives.  It takes me from being a person who focuses on myself, to being a person who regularly ventures outside of myself to dive into the lives of others.

My son also bought a movie the other day and begged me to watch it with him.  I was surprised when the movie turned out to be “Music Within,” a great story about a man named Richard Pimentel, who was responsible for many of the changes in policy within the government offices that led to the Americans with Disabilities Act and many of the changes that were brought about by his seminars on how to equalize the deficit for those with disabilities.   The story takes place long before bathroom stalls were handicapped and ramps were required. 

In the story, Richard befriends a young man with Cerebral Palsy and develops a friendship with him.  Throughout the story, Richard learns a valuable lesson about how people treat those with disabilities.  He learns it partly due to his own experience as a man who was deaf, and he learns it through his experiences dealing with the so-called normal world through the eyes of his friend as well.  Richard’s tough childhood dealing with the early death of his father and the inconsistencies of his mother who suffered from mental illness gave him every reason to sink into self-pity, but instead, he used his anger to make changes for those who are less advantaged.  He didn’t have to do it, but I would imagine if you asked Richard today, he would tell you that he is glad that he took the path he did.  

I look at all the good that came from the action of that one man, and I think about how much more could be done if more people took that kind of action.   Some people wait for lightning to strike them so that they can know what direction they should go, but fate rarely works in that way.  Those of us who feel the strong pull of our destiny know that it all started by first taking a blind step forward.   

Our group didn’t start our senior ministry knowing where it would lead, we stepped forward and watched the doors begin to open and the hearts begin to change.   The amazing thing is that it changed us, too.  No longer were we unaware of the loneliness of the aged and the invisibility of the infirm.  As if a veil were lifted from our eyes, we could now see the need that was out there.  

My prayer for you is that your veil is lifted as well, but if it isn’t, close your eyes and take a step.  Don’t wait for inspiration to come to you, but become the inspiration that you want to find.  Your blind step forward will change you.  In doing so, you will learn the wonderful thing that those involved in good works learn–that love changes those who give and those who receive it as well.