THE POWER OF SMALL THINGS

Who do you really want to help?
by
Chaplain Kathie

An email exchange with a dear friend got me thinking about how some people doing this work on PTSD do it very quietly, never thinking about themselves. Unlike me, they don't have a blog or website and they don't do videos. They are missing a soap box simply because they are too busy helping the men and women God sends to them. In a way, I know what that is like because I don't post about any of the veterans coming to me or their families. When I think about that type of work being done across the country on a daily basis, I feel blessed to know them. All they want back is to be able to help others because their hearts are in the right place.

I do what I do because of my husband/best friend/love of my life. I have a personal interest in this. My friends however come from all different backgrounds. Some have PTSD, knowing what it feels like and what it felt like to feel alone, they are moving mountains changing lives and saving them without ever once thinking about anything more than helping. Some have or had a family member with PTSD and they know what it's like on the other side. Some just do it because they really care. Their work is done in "small ways" but those small ways end up changing countless lives.

THE POWER OF SMALL THINGS

What is it that enables this tiny seed to make such a prodigious increase? It lies in its receptive power, as it receives into its nature the mighty forces which slumber in the soil, the effect of sunbeams, moisture, and air. So long as a little aperture is kept open, there is no limit to the fertility and usefulness of the plant. You may be but a child, and your life seem weak and ineffective, but if you will open your heart to God by faith, He will pour in His mighty fullness, and the tiny seed become a great tree of strength and usefulness, grace and beauty. (F. B. Meyer)

So Jesus said to them, “Because of your unbelief; for assuredly, I say to you, if you have faith as a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you. (Matthew 17:20)

Faith by its very nature must be tried, and the real trial of faith is not that we find it difficult to trust God, but that God's character has to be cleared in our own minds. Faith in its actual working out has to go through spells of unsyllabled isolation. Never confound the trial of faith with the ordinary discipline of life, much that we call the trial of faith is the inevitable result of being alive. Faith in the Bible is faith in God against everything that contradicts Him - I will remain true to God's character whatever He may do. "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him" - this is the most sublime utterance of faith in the whole of the Bible. (Oswald Chambers.)

So often we say “I can’t” when we should be saying what Paul said – “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me!” (Philippians 4:13) Anything that God asks you to do, you can do, if you walk by faith and not by sight.

In God we trust

May 6, 2010

Papa Roy

Papa Roy is another one of "them" in my life. He sends out a daily email of support for the Chaplains in our group. (Yes, even Chaplains need spiritual support.) He is humble and truly loving. He seeks nothing more than to do what he does in small ways, but when you think about what he does for us, how many people he ends up reaching thru us, you can see what a big deal it really becomes.

I believe that if you reach one heart to offer help, you end up touching a thousand hands. Every good deed we do affects the lives of the person we help and they in turn pass on the "good deed" to others.

If you do things for other people for their sake, take heart and know that whatever help you are able to give is help they may not have known otherwise. If you do things for yourself and hide behind helping someone else, then look into what has really been motivating you and then justify yourself to God. If you have been rewarded with the fame you sought, then you have more responsibility on your shoulders to help others. I really pray you live up to the reputation you wanted. As for me, I'm in the middle. Neither "saint" or "sinner" because there are times when I wish I was as popular as some, just as there are other times when I wish I was as good and selfless as others. I am happier when my ego is out of the way and "they" are my focus. I think we'd all be happier if we remembered why we got into this type of work in the first place.