Be a Window of Hope

There are moments when another person changes the way we see the world.

Years ago, a young graduate student spent several months living with a Navajo family while conducting research in the American Southwest. Although he and the family’s elderly grandmother spoke different languages, a friendship slowly grew between them. They worked together, shared meals together, and over time came to understand one another without many words.

When it was time for him to leave, she embraced him, looked into his eyes, and spoke the few English words she had learned.

“I like me best when I’m with you.”

What a remarkable thing to say.

She was not simply expressing affection. She was saying that in his presence she had become more patient, more joyful, more fully herself. Their relationship had brought out something beautiful within her.

That is one of God’s greatest gifts. The right people have a way of enlarging our hearts. They help us become kinder than we might otherwise have been.…