A Good Deed in a Weary World

"How far that little candle throws his beams! So shines a good deed in a weary world."  William Shakespeare

I was engaged in fall yard clean-up (my husband was 2,000 miles away on business) when I noticed a neighbor two doors up raking and bagging huge piles of leaves.   She is a divorced mother who is working to support her youngest, a son, as he serves as a missionary in South America.  There was a cold wind blowing in an ever- darkening cover of clouds that made the task harder.  I ought to help her I thought wearily feeling as if I didn’t have the energy to finish my own tasks.  The next time I looked up, a woman and her two teenage sons were working quickly beside her to get the leaves raked and bagged before the coming storm.  I live in a neighborhood where helping others is a tradition.   I was grateful they were willing and able to help.  I didn’t help the divorced but I left my chores unfinished to take dinner to a young mother battling a serious infection from a ruptured appendix on top of a Cesarean Section.   Having used up all his vacation time, the young husband had to return to work and has depended upon neighborhood women to take shifts caring for the baby and bringing dinner in each evening.

The curse of our generation is busyness.  There is always more to do than can be done, more demands on our time than there is time available.  This is what makes the service and support rendered both remarkable and encouraging.  It is a blessing to live surrounded by busy people working hard to care for themselves and their families who willingly and constantly put their own needs on the back burner to help someone else. 

“Two are better than one . . .For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up.”  Ecclesiastes 4:9-10