Every morning before I leave my home to do errands or go to doctor’s appointments, I stand in the foyer putting my coat on, and I read a poem that hung in my father’s study that now hangs in my foyer.  Four words stand out: faith, love, peace, and God.  Where there is faith, there is love.  Where there is love, there is peace.  Where there is peace, there is God.  Where there is God, there is no need. Every morning, I let those four words put a smile on my face because I know that I am loved, and God will walk beside me. “This is the day that the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

But I realize that each of us has a past, a present, and a future.  The past may or may not have been positive, the present news may be too violent to even contemplate, and the future seems to worry everyone my age.  Are those four words slipping from Americans’ minds, from people’s minds around the world? Like Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’, “A Christmas Carol,” do we need to be visited by three ghosts to change the paths we are on, to realize that only by having those four words in our hearts and acting on them will the chaos and darkness of the world be ended?  There will be no poverty, no racism, no greed, no violence, no hatred, no domestic violence in families, no pain inflicted by others, no hostile words, no fear.  We will be surrounded with faith, love, and peace because our needs will be met by God. He has known us since before we were born, and He will be with us until He takes us home.

We are here on earth for a short time; no one knows when our Master will call us home.  We need to have tender hearts.  A tender heart is what God wants us to have.  A tender heart seeks Him, listens to Him, and does what He wants done.  Unlike the world, He does not see a tender heart as a liability but as an asset to make the world a better place to live in.  When we were baptized and later confirmed, we were given new hearts and new spirits.  It is the courageous, kindhearted person who says, “Send me, Lord. Send me,” when God asks, “Who will step forward to do this job?”

So when I leave my home every day, I feel  faith, love, peace, and God all around me.  My smile is a by-product of those beautiful words.  How can I not be kindhearted when I am blessed to be a child of God?  As for my smile, that is how God’s light shines through me.

Anna Hartt