Barbara Opperman was a smiling presence among many others warmly present during my hardest days of postpartum emotional difficulties.
But I barely knew her. We went to church with her and her husband, David, in the seventies. We weren’t of the same generation. We weren’t in a small group together.
When I read her obituary recently—she was two days shy of 93—I remembered the small gray mittens she knitted for our baby. A mini gift, given nearly 50 years ago, still gives me a sense of being cared for at a time when I felt deep and pervasive shame, the residue of a childhood of rejection.
That bit of care, knitted with all the other gifts, prayers, and time given to me at that hard time, created a sweater of social safety that encircled me in God’s compassion. And that compassion began to heal my shame.
We often do not know the emotional desert others languish in.
The loneliness. The shame. The self-rejection.
Nor do we grasp what a cup of cool water will mean to those nearly dying of thirst.
Don’t dismiss the value of a small act of caring.
Thanks for the reminder, Karen! What long lasting goodness can come from the seemingly simple & small.
Great message because its so true and so available to all of us. If we can move mountains it certainly doesn't mean we are called to. We are called to love one another. That's for sure.