“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’  – Matthew 25:37-40

During a recent cold snap, I started down the stairs early one morning for my usual quiet time.  When I was about halfway down the stairs, I realized that something was wrong.  Really wrong.

It kept getting colder…and colder…and colder.

“Something is wrong!” I said out loud to no one, and hurried down the stairs to flip the light on.

I discovered that my back door was…standing…open.

Whoever had let the dogs in the night before had not closed it well, and it wiggled open.  The temperature in the house was 48 degrees.

Right away, I had several praises:

• thanks, God, for a relatively new heating system
• thanks, God, for two systems in the house, one of which kept the upstairs to the usual 67 degrees despite the influx of super cold air from downstairs
• thanks, God, for no one/nothing coming in my wide open door

A bit later I could say:  “Thanks, God, that the system was efficient enough to return the temperature to 67 degrees in just four hours (which I thought was pretty good for a 19 degree jump).

But there was another blessing in store for me…an unexpected one:  the conversation at our breakfast table.

I am blessed with sweet, empathetic children, but the empathy they developed by our one cold morning in the house brought out new levels of empathy in them.

They decided that we had an abundance of blankets in our home, and that we should share them with a local homeless ministry.

They also started making bracelets in order to raise money for the same ministry to use to take care of the street people in our area.

It was beautiful to see, even though it was an expensive lesson monetarily.

Father, thank You for the way you teach us, even when it is difficult for us.  Thank You in this case that the lesson was fairly easy to learn.  I pray that it has a long-lasting affect on all of us.  I pray, also, for the homeless forced to be out in this extreme cold.  Help them, Lord, to find a warm place to spend this winter.