A Kindness Remembered

We've taken some time lately to work in our yard, enjoying some mild February weather, and accomplishing some tasks that had been lingering awhile.

There was another winter, though, in another place, during a hard time, when someone did me a great kindness, one I haven't forgotten, although the details are now blurred in my memory. My father was ill during the snowiest winter we were there, and the job of shoveling the driveway fell to my mother and me. Clearing the drive was important, and it wasn't a job that could be left to linger. A friend called one day while we were out working, and my father spoke to him, telling him what we were doing. It was an ordinary moment, and I don't remember thinking anything terribly much of it, until later, that night or one to come shortly, when I was ready for bed, and stopped to look out my window. There was my friend, working by the light of the street lamp, clearing our driveway. He didn't speak to us, and I wouldn't have known of his gift, except for that moment at the window. I've certainly known a lot of kindness in my life, and been the recipient of great generosity, but there was something about that moment... a friend had stepped in to carry part of my burden, and he did it with no fanfare, or thought of thanks. He simply gave.

Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. Galatians 6:2