Little Things - by Joel Hempel After her brother and father were killed in a car accident, Marcia said she and her mom made life work by doing the little things. Marcia would come home from high school, start supper, and when her mom came home from work, they would finish preparing the meal together. While supper was on the stove, Marcia would walk their Collie, Mike, down the street to visit with Uncle Bob, who was a miracle survivor of polio. I had wonderful aunts who would come over for a visit, bringing treats and stories from the past. Life was simple, but it worked for us. Much of life in marriage and family is about the little things! Warm embraces, laughing together, helping each other out with homework, playing games in the park, listening to each other’s pain, sacrificing for loved ones in need, praying as a family, and so much more. The little things make a growing relationship work. But not everyone agrees. Recently, I heard a comedian on Facebook state he would never get married. He said
Why would I? Every time I ask a married person, how’s married life, they respond, “It’s great, but it takes a lot of work.” I ask another couple if they like being married, and they reply, “Absolutely, but there are days when you wish you weren’t.” Why would anyone get married with this kind of recommendation? Imagine shopping for a car and asking the salesman for his personal opinion about the car, and he replies, “It has good days and bad days.” Who would buy it? The comedian makes a good point. Marriage and family are not for everyone. But for those who enter it believing in the covenant they make to each other and with God, life doesn’t get any better. Martin Luther famously referred to these little things we do for and with others as the “Masks of God.“1 In other words, the faithful and seemingly little things we do through our vocation and in service to and with others mask the presence of God who is working through us. It is God laughing when we laugh with a loved one, and it is God crying in empathy when our heart is broken as we sit with another. It is humbling but true: God is behind all that we do, and therefore what we do brings glory to God.
Those shoes you tie for little ones, that’s God tying them. The floors you clean, the contracts you write, the people you manage, that is God at work through you. When we think about what we do as individuals, as well as in marriage and family –
What’s more important than the little things?
1. Martin Luther, Exposition of Psalm 147, LW, vol. 14, pages 114-115. Also see 1 Corinthians 3:7, 9. |
