Daily Devotion by Sue Matz

We have the capacity to share life-giving love.  This is the good news: that we can learn love, from God and from one another, as we share life together in graced encounter.  Gillian Ahlgren

Father Benedict Novakoff, the director of a brewery at a Benedictine monastery in Italy wrote an article about realizing that while selling beer to the public to raise funds that the monks were also sharing the gospel with others simply by sharing love and being kind as they sell beer. This made me think of Good Shepherd’s ministry to Taft Elementary.  Because we are working with a public school system we are not permitted to preach the gospel in the classical sense, but we can share love and kindness.  I believe God is with us everyday in our ordinary lives, and when we experience love and kindness we are seeing God in the moment.  God is there in the laughter and the pain, when we are easily lovable and when we are not.    

The children at Taft Elementary have captured my heart, really captured it.  It’s easy to witness love and kindness amidst the pain and inappropriate behaviors common to childhood.  I have seen a tiny student walk into school clutching a bag containing all his worldly goods because his family had just been evicted and his teacher and fellow classmates sharing lots of hugs and showing understanding as they try to make his day as normal as possible.  And then it was my turn to show love when the child was told to read with me. At one point he simply leaned against me as he read.  I hoped that gentle hug as he read helped make him feel a little better. God put all of us in that child’s path that day and didn’t ask much of us, simply love and kindness.  

 I have seen students light up when they have read an entire page aloud without errors to a Good Shepherd tutor and that very patient adult beaming right back at the student.   Where love is flowing between two, this is where I see God.  We at Good Shepherd have been given the gift of being able to share love with the Taft community and it’s mirrored right back to us, often it is in the children’s smiles, the stories they want to tell us, pictures they make for us and the spontaneous hugs they give on seeing an adult friend.  I’m so thankful for the many gifts. Think about a time you felt the gift of love.  Have you given thanks? It will get those endorphins flowing and make you smile.

2 comments on article "Daily Devotion by Sue Matz"

Danelle Buelsing

Beautiful reflections, Sue. May we all find an opportunity to share love and kindness today.

11/30/2021 10:00 AM

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Erlys Johnson

Reading this I thought about the little boy I read with today. He asked me if I’d missed him. When said of course, he held my hand, leaned on me and said, “I really missed you, too.” How can you not love that!,

11/30/2021 6:11 PM

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