I thought you’d enjoy a story from Abundant Gifts that, if you had the book, you’d be reading this week. This is an everyday gift and also speaks of gifts to others.
Then [Jesus] said to them, Whoever welcomes this little child in my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. For he who is least among you all–he is the greatest.—Luke 9:48, NIV
Ernest Boyer Jr., in Finding God at Home (Harper & Row, 1994), tells how as a young boy he would tug on his great-grandfathers jacket to get his attention when the man was talking to someone. His great-grandfather would finish his sentence, stoop down to Ernest’s level, look at him, and wait patiently. “As he waited, he looked at me with eyes that told me I need not hurry, that there was time, eyes that said that I need not fear what he would think of what I might say, anything would be fine, eyes that seemed to see the person I most truly was and accept that person. His was caring of the deepest sort.”
Such a simple thing–to listen to a child. Yet this deceptively simple act of a great-grandfather influenced Continue reading “[Abundant Gifts excerpt] The Eyes of Acceptance”