When my father was in his early eighties, our teenaged sons called him one Veterans’ Day and said, “Papa, thank you for serving in World War II.” Later, he told me that, in all the long years since the war, no one had ever thanked him. He didn’t say it with bitterness, but rather with an almost childlike surprise and delight. Every Veterans’ Day until he died, the boys called him to say thank-you, and every time he received their words with fresh surprise and delight.
“Loving words will cost but little / Journeying up the hill of life / But they make the weak and weary / Stronger, braver for the strife. / Do you count them only trifles / What for earth are sun and rain? / Never was a kind word wasted. / Never was one said in vain.” J. Lincoln Hall
“[L]ove one another.” John 13:34
Lord, today please give me your creative, loving words to speak and the courage to speak them.