Accomplished anything great lately?

Accomplished anything great lately?

A small, bent-over, aged woman once said, “We can do no great things—only small things with great love.” That woman was Mother Teresa, a powerhouse for God who gave her life helping those who were the unloved and forgotten of the world.

Mother Teresa was born the daughter of a grocer. When she was a young woman she joined the Sisters of Our Lady of Lareto, a Catholic order that did charity work in India. She studied nursing for a while and then the slums of Calcutta began tugging at her heart strings. There she served the blind, the old, the disabled, and the dying. In 1979 she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her unselfish work loving and caring for these people.

I remember seeing her for the first time on TV and realizing just how aged and wrinkled her face was. As a young adult I wondered what had happened to her to create those lines. Then, as I began to read about her work and how her heart was reaching out to the unloved, she became the most beautiful lady I’d ever seen.

Her beauty was not without but within. I remember wanting to draw her wrinkled face because of the wealth of love I saw there. Her smile was infectious and her words…my…her words were certainly God-given. The phrase quoted above was copied from an email I recently received and it once again reminded me of my love for this beautiful woman.

Her statement about us not being able to do great things but “small things with great love” is so true. I’ve watched people who have assumed greatness in their own right. They seek to do things in their own strength and to get the glory themselves and the only great thing they accomplish is failing. Mother Teresa’s strength was in God’s grace and His hand on her life. She sought after securing help for others, not her own comforts or safety. Her life was a testament to God’s care and she was able to accomplish many small things with His great love.

So what great thing are you trying to accomplish? Who will benefit from it? Who will get the glory? Is being known for this “great thing” more important than actually doing great things for others? It’s a soul-searching question.