For a long time I saw this lady on the train platform. It could easily have been years. While we slightly acknowledged each other (if that) we never spoke. One evening, as I was walking home, I thought I saw her walking into a building in Manhattan in front of me. But I really wasn’t sure. The next day, I saw her and smiled at her and asked her if she worked in the building I thought I saw her walk into. She confirmed that it was, and we’ve literally been very good friends since then. It turned out we had so much in common and we talk as if we are long lost friends. And it began with a smile, and ‘do you?..’
Remember I shared with you a few weeks about being obedient? To this day I have no idea why I felt God called me out of the office before my usual time and took me in a direction I had not gone to lunch in months. The only interaction I clearly recall was a guy in a van, who was about to drive off, that we smiled at each other and exchanged hellos, and both kept going our separate ways. But again, I still have no idea.
I think of one of my friendships and how it began. Someone misread a situation and thought there had been some wrong doing. Instead of going off, as most others who knew that the person was wrong, and thought I had the right to do, I calmly explained the situation, and didn’t allow it to become a bigger issue than it was. That person and I have been friends for over 15 years. She realized that a mistake had been made, but what got her attention was the way I handled the situation. Even today, there are many days that I need to remind myself that ‘a soft answer turneth away wrath’.
But going back to smiling, I wanted to share with you what my earthly father told me when I was a teenager, and has been one of my greatest life lessons. ‘It does not cost you anything to be nice. If someone says hi to you, say hi back, you don’t need to engage in conversation.’ To this day, I walk around saying hi and smiling with people. And you’d be surprised that all people want to know is that you see them and not just see past them.
Sometimes, you never know how an unexpected, but God given friendship will begin with just a smile and hello. You also never know whose life you are changing just by being kind to them.
Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for friendships and your generosity with them. We thank you for the friends that you have strategically placed in our lives. Help us to be kind to one another, even if it’s by a smile to a stranger in the street, we never know the struggles others are facing and how we can impact their lives by being kind. Help us so that others will see you in us, even in such simple gestures.