Devotionals

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The Secret Admirer
©
by

Stephen A. Peterson

Read: Proverbs 21: 13-16

A gift in secret pacifies anger…

Proverbs 21:14


In 1989 between Halloween and Christmas, I was a patient in a rural Shawnee, Oklahoma hospital. Most of us were saddened or angered at being separated from our families during the holiday season. But three or four rooms down from my room was a young woman, I was told, was in traction as a result of a serious car accident. She was said to be in a great deal of pain for nearly a month. She complained bitterly, cried a great deal and made life extremely difficult for the nurses, doctors, volunteers and other patients. No one wanted to be around her at all.

On Thanksgiving Day, her moaning, cussing, cursing and swearing could be heard on our end of the hospital for sure and probably by everyone on our floor. I lay in my bed with mixed feelings of pity, anger and sorrow for her and her behavior. Then my roommate, Pat, got up out of bed and disappeared down the hall. In about 15 minutes or so, the shouting ceased.

During the week after Thanksgiving the troublesome patient could heard telling anyone who would listen about the carnations and roses she had received with a card stuck on a plastic pitch fork with the words written “From A Top Secret Admirer Of Your Charm and Beauty”. This woman was so engrossed in trying to find out who had sent her the gift that she did not have time to gripe or feel sorry for herself. Pat could have made a show of giving the bouquet of flowers to her by his presence. By sending the flowers anonymously to her, his gift had a quality that made it last and last.

Pat’s gesture of kindness, in my mind, was a stroke of genius—or was it? Maybe he recalled Christ’s command to be a servant who sees to the pain and suffering of our brothers and sisters not with revenge, anger and indifference but with unconditional love.

Now when I see or heard of the physical and emotional suffering of others, I am prompted to do an act of kindness—just like Pat did in a spirit of unconditional love and in the service of other in response to Christ’s command to love one another.

Prayer: Almighty Father, let me help those hurting in the manner You constantly command of me in a quiet and secret manner without having to receive praise or glory.

Thought for the Day: Let us come to the aid of the suffering.

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