This blog is one day late. I usually give myself a deadline of posting a blog by Thursday evening at 10:00pm. I didn’t post last night due to sickness and being in bed much earlier in the evening than usual. That’s my story and I am sticking to it!

            When I woke up this morning, I felt much better. I had slept for almost 10 hours (about 3 more than I usually get) and I had some good energy. So, this morning, my two oldest kids and I took a trip to an urban area of the city and delivered about 120 pounds of bread to a ministry that feeds and cares for the poor and the mentally ill. My kids were a little “standoffish” at first, but it was a good experience for them to see that there are people who need our help and it is our responsibility as followers of Christ to help this people.

            When we walked into this ministry, there were about 35-40 people crammed into a moderately sized room eating food. The workers were happy to see us and their eyes grew large when they saw how much bread and bagels we had brought. They were very thankful and told me that they hoped that we could do this on a regular basis. I did commit to them that we would do this as much as we are able and that probably meant on a weekly basis.

            The people they were serving were all sitting around tables not having much conversation with anyone. I did see one gentleman that I knew and when he saw me he got a big smile on his face, stuck out his hand and shook mine. He joked that he just can’t get away from me and I made joked that he needed me to follow him around to make sure he didn’t get into any trouble. He laughed heartily and I moved onto delivering bread.

            What was the difference between my friend and his smile and the other 35 or so folks who were their who looked so forlorn, who hung their heads and had no expressions on their faces whatsoever. My guess is that there are a lot of differences, but the one I have been thinking about since this morning is that my friend saw a friendly face that genuinely smiled at him when he saw him. He had someone he could connect to and who had treated him with respect in the past. The others did not have this same experience when they saw me. None of them knew me and so there was no connection to me in the past. The sad, distant, blankless looks had nobody to help brighten their day.

            I wonder if it is our responsibility as followers of Christ to bring some brightness into someone’s day. I hope that all of us would like to lead every person we meet into a saving relationship with Jesus; but I think we also all know that each person must make their own personal choice to follow Christ. Maybe it is our responsibility to love people, no matter what their lot in life. In order to love people, the way Christ loved people, we must spend time with them and build relationships with them. That is the key. Perhaps after building a relationship with people, they will be willing to hear us talk about their need to fall in love with Jesus and to allow themselves to be loved by Jesus.

            My family and the organization we lead commits to this: to build relationships with the people we serve and to hopefully be able to talk to them about opening themselves up to living in the love of God. After all, loving God and loving people is all that matters.

            Have you ever thought what it might be like to be God? I don’t want to be God. I know that He is the One and Only, the Almighty, the all-knowing, all-present, all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe and I am just little ol’ me.

            What I am asking you is have you ever thought about what it must be like to be God? I would imagine that there are times when God is frustrated and angry about the things that are happening in the world - things that destroy His creation: both human and non-human. I would think that it is agonizing to Him to watch people hurt other people and basically show plain old disregard for others. Especially frustrating might be observing professed followers more interested in building their own little kingdoms than in building the Kingdom of God. Now, I am not God so I don’t really know how He feels about these issues. I can only guess.

            I also wonder if God isn’t sometimes sitting on the front edge of His throne in great anticipation of what His followers are about to do. I wonder if He is excitedly waiting to drown each individual in His grace. Again, I am not God and I can only guess at what He thinks and feels.

            Recently, a friend of mine made a decision to surrender his life to Christ. I was so excited that I had great difficulty telling my wife about it because of the swell of emotion in my heart. As he and I talked on the phone, he told me that He cried out to God as an act of desperation due to a particular life circumstance. He asked me if God would still accept him because this was an emotional plea for help and not a rational decision to follow Christ. As best as I could, I explained to my friend that God has been waiting desperately for him to make this decision and that I didn’t believe that God cared about the desperation issue involved here; all He cared about was that my friend made a decision to follow Him.

            Can you just picture God watching my friend surrender his life to Him? I can almost see the tears of joy running down His face as another prodigal son came home to his Father.

            Is this a strange picture for you - that God the Father loves you perfectly? That He is not a big bad entity in the sky waiting for you to screw up so He can zap you. God does care for you and love you more than you can imagine and more than I can describe.

            Rest in that. Rejoice in that. Share that.

For this weeks blog, I want to introduce to you the most important person in my life. She is the love of my life, my best friend, my closest confidant and my greatest encourager. I know that this may sound corny to say these things about my wife. Some of you guys are thinking that I wrote that to score some brownie points with my wife. If I do that is great. But I really wrote this because it is true. I know that you will be blessed and challenged by her message. So, let me introduce to you. my wife Jennifer.

My Family has always been one of sarcasm and the giving of hard times.  I’ve struggled over the last couple years with just how “Christian” it is to do this.  Here are some of the things I have come across in my search, if you will.  Please feel free to take them or leave them and find your own nuggets.

The Bible says we are to be imitators of Christ.  (Eph. 5:1-2  Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children.  Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. He loved us and offered himself as a sacrifice for us.)  So we should love those around us and sacrifice for them. 

Ephesians 4:29 (New Living Translation) says “Don’t use foul or abusive language. Let everything you say be good and helpful, so that your words will be an encouragement to those who hear them.” (emphasis added)  Please note that our words are to be encouraging not only to those we are speaking to but also those we are speaking about.  Our words should ALWAYS build up and not tear down. 

Wow!!!  In today’s society what a hard thing to do.  Our very core is centered around tearing people down, getting ahead, climbing the ladder and making yourself look good at all costs.  We have television that “votes off” the team member who is not the smartest, prettiest, skinniest or most talented.  We bash people instead of taking them by the hand and offering them grace, hope, love and a safe haven.

Proverbs 26:18-19 says “Like a madman shooting firebrands or deadly arrows is a man who deceives his neighbor and says, ‘I was only joking!’”

If this is the case then should we not only speak words that encourage people - period?  Does this mean we really shouldn’t say something “in jest” because let’s be honest, how many of us have said something and meant it as a joke but it’s taken differently by the person the comment is directed toward?  And, who even knows how many times we’ve said something that hurt someone and we didn’t even know it.  How much heartache could we save if we only spoke positively about people?  How many misunderstandings could be avoided if we just spoke things to encourage people?

I leave you with one last verse to pursue and consider…

James 3:9-10      (NIV)

With the tongue we praise our Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in God’s likeness. Out of the same mouth come praise and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.

            My cousin Joe died on Wednesday. He was 46 years old. I received a call from my dad on Friday early in evening asking me to pray for Joe. He told me that he had just talked to Joe’s father, my Uncle, who told him that Joe had collapsed while at his girlfriend’s apartment. His girlfriend had performed CPR on him until the paramedics arrived. The paramedics worked on him and got him to the hospital. Apparently, Joe had stopped breathing long enough to affect the quality of his brain activity. Once at the hospital the doctors put Joe into a medically induced coma to perhaps give Joe some time to pull through. He never did. Joe was taken off the medicine that put him into a coma on Tuesday afternoon and at 1:30am on Wednesday July 23^rd, my cousin Joe died.

            I have to tell you that I didn’t know Joe all that well. His family moved to Spring, Texas when I was five (that was 36 years ago). My family moved back into Cincinnati in 1972 one weekend and Joe’s family moved to Texas the next weekend. Throughout the years I would hear tidbits of information about Joe; I knew he got married and then divorced, I knew that he and his father traveled to Alaska annually to fish and I believe that they were pretty close. I hadn’t seen Joe for 35 years until last August when my siblings and I threw a pretty big party celebrating my dad’s 70^th birthday. Joe came with his mother and father. He looked significantly older that his 46 years. I don’t remember having a lengthy conversation with him that day. I am sure that I said hello to him and told him who I was. I did watch him occasionally and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. At the end of the party Joe, with his mom and dad in his truck with him, drove off to go back to the hotel and leave for Texas the next day. That was the last time I saw Joe.

            In tribute to Joe Stuhlreyer, I want to make the following points. These come from what I have thought of since I heard of Joe’s death from my father on Wednesday afternoon.

            Point #1 – You never know when this life on earth will end. I think we think that we will all live until we are 85 or so, but the truth is we do not have the foggiest idea when that time will come. So, live life to the full, get to know God and other people and love them.

            Point #2 – Get to know people. When you meet a person be fully present. This means that you give them your full attention and spend more time asking questions that help you know them better than talking about yourself. This means to love them more than you love yourself (sounds kind of biblical doesn’t it.). One more thing on this point, don’t interrupt others while they are talking either to you or to others. If you think about it, that is a pretty selfish thing to do.

            Point #3 – Tell the people around you that you love them and appreciate them. Tell this to your wife, to your husband, to your kids, to your parents, to your in-laws, even tell this to your cousin whom you have not seen for 35 years. Tell it loud and clear and make sure they understand it.

            Point #4 – Establish your faith and trust in God today, right here right now. You never know when you won’t have any more chances. If you have already done that, get to know God better and share your faith with others. Is there anything else more important than this?

            In order to practice what I preach (or write in this case), let me tell you something – I love you and I appreciate you. If it weren’t for you this ministry would not exist. You are important to me and to God. I hope to get to know you better as time goes on.

Steve

            This blog may be one of the more transparent ones that I have written up to this point. Because of its transparency, it is also one that makes me uncomfortable to write. I don’t like transparency because it makes me vulnerable. One of the reasons why people don’t like to be vulnerable to others is that this vulnerability opens themselves up to be hurt by what others say and do. Instead, for self-protective reasons, we all tend to keep conversations and interactions with others on a pretty superficial level. That way, I can’t be so easily hurt. So, in the spirit of “practicing what I preach” I am going to open myself up a little bit this evening. I know that this will give you an opportunity to say something that is hurtful to me (even if you can justify it as telling me a “hard truth”), but I believe it is important for me to do this and I would like to have more relationships that get beneath the surface of superficiality. Here it goes.

            I am in a spiritually dry place. And right now it doesn’t bother me one bit. Well, I guess that isn’t totally true. It does bother me to the point that I think about it and I know I should be (and want to be) in a more spiritually alive place.

            Over my almost 15 years as a follower of Christ, I have had several cycles in which I felt so close to the Lord that I felt I could tangibly feel His presence. I would be in this place for weeks, or maybe months, at a time. I would them cycle to a somewhat spiritually dry place but it wouldn’t be long until my spiritual pendulum would swing somewhere back in the middle. The problem with this current pendulum swing to the dry side is that it has gone the farthest it has ever gone and it has stayed there for probably about a month. Although I am reading my Bible most every day, I find that my mind wanders very quickly and I lose interest in what I am reading. I have to help you understand the significance of this. I LOVE reading the Bible and thinking about what it is teaching me. So, this loss of interest in reading the Bible and my inability to stay focused on it bothers me a great deal. My prayer life has waned some as well. I have often enjoyed communicated with the King of the universe throughout the day. I have never been one to consistently spend long times in prayer, I usually spend a lot of the day thinking about the Lord, and asking questions and listening to what He says. I have always felt that this is what it is meant by a “prayer life”. At this point, I intercede for people and things but feel like it is to no avail. I find myself only being able to say “Jesus” over and over again. Lately, I have been saying the name of “Jesus” and following that with an adjective that describes some aspect of who He is.

            For the sake of space let me leave it at that. The good news is that our ministry is still going strong, we have a proposal on the table to develop another aspect of the ministry and we are still excited about the future of the ministry. I also still firmly trust in the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross for my sins. He is my savior and the lover of my soul.

            What is also the good news is this, the intensity with which God loves me and holds onto me has never and will never wane. I know that He is always there for me even when I don’t feel it. When my Bible reading is in the state that it is right now or when my prayer life is less than what I want it to be, my Father in heaven has still engraved me in the palm of His right hand (Isaiah 49:15)! We all need to hold onto this truth and never let it go – that God is not like us. He doesn’t change, He is always the same! Thank God!

            This week our guest blog writer is my father-in-law Gary. He is a retired pastor and still very much a minister of God’s word. He is a lover of God and of people. I know that you will be blessed and challenged as I was with the teaching below. Now, let me introduce to you my friend and brother-in-Christ Gary.

I Corinthians 8:1-3

But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. (I Cor 8:2b-3a NLT)

1 Corinthians 8:1-3 1 Now regarding your question about food that has been offered to idols. Yes, we know that “we all have knowledge” about this issue. But while knowledge makes us feel important, it is love that strengthens the church. 2 Anyone who claims to know all the answers doesn’t really know very much. 3 But the person who loves God is the one whom God recognizes.

Believers often find themselves asking the wrong questions about Christian living, consequently, our answers don’t always reflect the heart of God. God is always trying to speak to people through every word of scripture and other believers. Sadly, we often think this is just part of the special call of God to ministers. But this is the call of every believer. Let us take seriously the fact that God will anoint every believer to speak a word fit for the occasion. The Bible says that:

11 A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold
      In settings of silver.
       12 Like an earring of gold and an ornament of fine gold (Proverbs 25:11+12 KJV)

Oh yes, you can be the speaker of words that are life changing – even life saving. God can and will bless any person who accepts the responsibility to speak the right words to another even if you do not know what those words should be. That doesn’t mean that every word we speak is a word from God but it does mean that God will use us from time to time.

Lest anyone set me in the world of the wacko, let me clarify that this is assuming that we are attempting to live according to God’s Word. I know there have been times when a person has comforted me or encouraged me that I was aware either right then or shortly thereafter that God spoken to me through that person. I don’t want to say much about this except to say that the writer of Proverbs greatly values this “word fitly spoken.”

Returning to my original Scriptural passage for this blog in I Corinthians 8 where Paul effectively tells us that love is better than knowledge; I don’t think for a moment that Paul is telling us that knowledge is not important but he is telling us that love is of greater value. If I understand him correctly he is saying that we all think we are right about our theological stand on any given issue; but we hold different beliefs on these doctrines or beliefs. I think Paul is saying that when we fight about which of us is right we put a stumbling stone in many peoples way; but if we speak lovingly to people we will draw people to the kingdom of God. And, often, this is just what we are attempting to do. I think we have overlooked this often and by that have, in effect, chased them away from God.

Paul says that whether meat is offered to idols that don’t even exist is a pointless argument that causes division unnecessarily. And this is often the way our arguments our disagreements are to the world around us. What is needed are words that build up and encourage people. I personally believe that the Church should constantly be trying to speak “fit words” that would serve to make us attractive in the eyes of the world around us.

I have a little paradigm that I think we should always remember. The process is head, heart, feet. That is we receive God’s word and wrestle with it in our head. Then we become convinced of it through our heart until we are absolutely sure; then, believing that it is true we will attempt to live it out. But many or us never get to the last step – the feet. If we find that God’s word is true then it must be lived out, for we do not believe what we say we believe; we believe only what we are willing to live out in our lives.

My life is different since I began to act out the “love of God shed abroad in my heart.”

We must remember that God uses the stumbling words we speak to touch people. I even pray before I leave my house in the morning that God will help me to speak uplifting words to the people I will meet through out the day. We all need to realize that we are servants of God in every aspect – speech, actions and all other ways we touch them. So, we pray ‘Lord, help me speak words that are like apples of gold in settings of silver.’ Be aware that you are first of all a servant of God, then a person performing the task at hand.

Because if the 4th of July holiday weekend, I am taking off this week. The next blog teaching to be posted will be on July 10th. Happy a happy fourth of July holiday.

Many blessings on you all!

Steve

            I want to continue on the theme from two weeks ago on the “little things”. I do believe that we underestimate how the “little things” can make a huge difference in someone’s life. The little things might be a smile, a head nod, a kind word or not saying an unkind word when the opportunity presents itself. It could be letting the driver into traffic ahead of you or letting someone cut in front of you in the grocery line because they have fewer items than you do. Little things matter. Many of them may go unnoticed by others but they will never go unnoticed by God.

Those passages of scripture in which Jesus teaches that we go into our closet to pray or to wash ourselves so that others won’t notice when we are fasting are significant to this point I am making. Loving things that we do for others that may not get noticed, do get noticed by God. In fact, I wonder if He stands up and cheers or if He stays seated and has one of those big ‘ole belly laughs of pure enjoyment when one of His children does a loving thing for someone else just because they want to. They do it not to get the attention of others but because that is what He is molded them into.

            I like stories. I like them because they help the reader connect to the story on an emotional level that mere facts do not. So, let me relate the following story. There will be no application after the end of the story. Once its done, this blog teaching is done. Let me just drop a nugget into your brain before you read the story. What is the “little thing” that occurs in the story and why did it have the effect it did?

            There is a true story about a monk who lived in the European region during the time in history after the time of Christ. He had spent his entire adult life in this monastery serving the monastery and those who lived in it. One of his great desires was to take a leave from the monastery and go see the Holy City, Rome. Eventually he got up the nerve to ask his superiors for permission to visit Rome. Much to his surprise they said yes! He was very excited so he packed his meager belongings and headed off to Rome.

            When he arrived in Rome, it was everything he thought it would be. The arts were magnificent, the architecture was beautiful, the people were generally kind, and the food was delicious. Although he couldn’t speak or understand their language, he was so happy to be in Rome he almost had to pinch himself.

            As he walked through the city, he noticed that a great number of Romans were making their way to what was called the coliseum. The monk figured he would take in whatever sporting event was going on there before he went on to try to meet the Holy Father - the Pope. Once inside the coliseum, he found a seat and waited in great anticipation for the event to begin. After a short period of time, the crowd roared as eight Roman soldiers marched out in two equal lines to the center of the mail floor. The soldiers faced the emperor and yelled, “We will serve the emperor in life and we will serve the emperor in death.” When they said this, the soldiers turned and faced each other and drew their swords. The monk quickly realized what was about to happen and was horrified that not only was the crowd not stopping this madness but was actually cheering louder. The monk started to run down the aisle yelling “In the name of God, STOP!!! In the name of God STOP!!!” He said this the over and over again as he ran down the aisle toward the main floor. He eventually reached the inner wall and was flabbergasted to see that the soldiers were fighting with their swords. Nobody had paid any attention to him as he had yelled and ran. He decided he had to do something, so he jumped the wall, ran out onto the main floor and stopped right in the middle of two of the soldiers fighting. As he did this he kept yelling, “In the name of God STOP!!!” The soldiers kept fighting and ran the monk through and killed him. As the monk’s body slumped to the ground a hush came over the crowd. After a few minutes, the crowd, including the emperor began to file out in silence. That was the last day that gladiators fought in the Roman Coliseum.

            Let me tell you a story about a conversation between a priest and God. You may have heard this story before and if you just bear with me, I think it is worthy to be heard again. Now this story is somewhat a visual illustration so you will have to use your brilliant mind to picture what is going on in this story.

            There was a priest who ministered in a rural area in the Midwest. One day he was meditating on the difference between heaven and hell. He was troubled that he didn’t have a clearer picture of the difference so he prayed and asked God what the difference was between heaven and hell. God answered the priest in a dream that night. God said to the priest, “You have been asking me what is the difference between heaven and hell.  I am now going to show you.” God took the priest into a large building that had only two rooms. God told the priest that this first room described what hell was like. In this first room, the priest saw two-dozen people who were scrawny and looked on the brink of starvation. They were all sitting around a large dining table and in the middle of the room was a large pot of stew. In one hand of each of the people around the table was a long-handled spoon. The spoon handle was so long that as the people were dipping their spoons into the stew they couldn’t turn the spoon toward themselves in order to eat. Because they couldn’t feed themselves, they were all starving to death. The priest looked dumbfounded. Why were they starving to death when the food was literally right in front of them? This room represented hell.

            God then took the priest to the next room. This room was set up just the same way as the first room but in this room the two-dozen people around the table were all laughing and seemed to be having a good time. Each person was rather plump. Like the first room that represented hell each person had a long-handled spoon in one hand. What they were doing different in this room was that instead of trying to feed themselves they were feeding each other. They were dipping their spoons into the stew and reaching across the table with the spoons and feeding the person directly across from them. This room represented heaven.

            What is the moral of this story? Well, I guess there could be several different answers to that question. But there is one particular one I want to look at.

            Have you ever been in a church where everybody was concerned about one thing…themselves? They are ultimately concerned with whether the music ministered to them, whether the preaching ministered to them, whether the pastor greeted them. They are uncomfortable when the service order is “out of order” in their opinion. Churches like this are what I call dead churches. They are only concerned in feeding themselves. Consequently, they are dying through self-imposed starvation. In keeping in line with the story above, they are no better off then being in hell.

            On the flip side, have you ever been in a church in which the major thrust of the church was reaching out to their community? They are only interested in how the “church” (and they define it differently than the dead churches do) can pull resources together to make a difference in the community through love. They don’t care about the form that this “love difference” takes, they only care about loving God and loving people. These are called life-giving churches. In keeping in line with the story above, these churches are approaching heaven.

            What kind of church do you want to be in? What kind of follower of Christ do you want to be? Do you want to be a self-centered follower of Christ or do you want to be an other-centered follower of Christ? Do you want to spiritually starve to death and be no better than being in hell or do you want to be a life-giving spiritually satisfied follower?

            The choice is yours.

            The other day we had a pretty severe storm pass through our city. The clouds turned a very dark, ominous black. The wind started to pick up (the winds were measured at 70 miles per hour that evening) and the power in our house went out; that is when out just long enough to cause me a painful, nagging injury.

            Let me explain. When the power went out my family and I were eating dinner in our dining room. With the rain coming and the wind blowing, I got up from the table to go around the house and make sure all the windows were closed. After checking the bathroom window, I walked into my dark bedroom (remember the power went out) and went toward the window only to encounter my briefcase……….. with my left pinky toe. For each of you who have ever stubbed your toe, it catches you by surprise and the initially hurt almost make you want to cuss. I have to confess to you, I did cuss. I said the word “damn”. Between the hurt of the toe and the realization that I had actually cussed was a double whammy. It became a triple whammy when I sat on my bed and, with just enough light to see, I saw that my pinky toe was already swelled up and slightly disfigured and was at about a 75 degree angle from its normal position. I had broken and dislocated my toe. Having broken toes and fingers in the past, I knew that if I went to the emergency room the doctor would tell me what I already knew about my injury and charge me $500.00. So, I reached down with my opposite hand and quickly “relocated” my toe back in place, then hobbled out to my living room so that I could milk all the sympathy I could from my wife and three kids (and it worked!).

            That was about 5 days ago. As of today, my toe and part of my foot is purple and slightly swollen, my toe still hurts and I have extracted all the milk I can from my wife and my kids. Whereas on the night that this happened, they all gathered around me and asked God to “heal daddy’s toe” and I soaked in all the attention I wanted, now I might get a passing “Hey, how’s your toe?” with a vacant stare on the face of the person who asked (just kidding honey!).

            Why am I telling you this? Am I trying to milk some additional sympathy from you, my loving audience? No, milking going on here! This injury to the smallest appendage on my body has had an effect on the rest of my body. Since I am limping and favoring my good leg, my left leg is getting sore. In fact, my calf muscle on my left leg is sore which only adds to my favoring my good leg. It has even affected my perceptions of reality. Several times, one of my kids have come within “stepping-on” distance of my toe. When this has happened, my anxiety level increases rapidly, I inhale and hold it, and all time seems to stop while I anticipate the searing pain that will happen when my foot gets stepped on only to find out that they didn’t come within 2 feet of my toe. An injury to one of the smallest parts of my body has affected me this much.

            What spiritual application does this have? There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Don’t you realize that sin is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough?” (1 Corinthians 5:6 – NLT). Paul here is addressing an obvious sin that the Corinthians had allowed to continue in their community of believers. Notice that Paul says here that this “sin is like a little yeast…” and it has affected everything else. Like my little toe that has affected the rest of my body, this sin in the Corinthian church is affected the rest of the church.

            Let me turn this on its head. This principle can be true in the opposite direction as well. While sin affects the rest of the spiritual body negatively, little things done in great love can dramatically affect the body of Christ and the community in which we live in a dramatic way.

            Let me give you a short example. The bulk of our ministry right now are two food pantries that we supply for the mentally ill and a bread ministry that is given to low-income individuals who live with mental illness. Now think about this, we are giving bread away, not cars, not houses, not boats or anything big like that. We are giving bread a very little thing when compared to cars, houses, and boats. I cannot begin to describe the ministry doors this has opened up for me. I have been able to share the love of Christ with many professionals because of this bread. Ministry is happening in ways that I cannot explain even if I had the space to explain it. A little bread is having a major impact on the lives of the people we get to give it to.

            Recently, while talking to my father-in-law, he said something that I have dwelled on since. He said that he wondered if it wasn’t the big things that God uses but the small things that He uses the most to touch the hearts of people. I think he’s right.

            What small thing can you do for your neighbor, co-worker, spouse, children? Let that be the “little” thing that blesses the socks off of someone.