Kindness in your Eyes

Kindness in Your Eyes

“Be the living expression of God’s kindness; kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile. Kindness.”
- Mother Teresa

I have so much admiration for Mother Teresa. Her service, heart, humbleness, and honesty have kept her a role model of mine for over half of my life. Her life has greatly impacted mine.

Several years into marriage, my husband was reading a well known book about leadership. It stated that Mother Teresa was the most influential person in the 21st century. He came out from the bedroom where he was reading and shared this statement with me in disbelief. I asked him if he knew what she looked like. (My next point being that she did not walk around like a beauty queen. She was short, humble, and often remembered as she looked in her later years as a wrinkled woman with deep soulful blue eyes.) “Know what she looked like?!” he exclaimed. “I KNEW her!” Insert my jaw dropping to the floor. How had this not come up in over three years of marriage? I have no idea.

My husband had attended a school she started in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. He remembers singing for her when she visited, and praying for her when she fell sick. He remembers her deformed feet, and the kindness in her eyes. Until he read the statement in this leadership book, he had no idea she was famous to anyone other than his classmates. To him, she was just the little, old, white sister that started his school. She was not followed around by media crews or paparazzi. She simply came to see the children. A true testimony of her life. She was the real deal.

We came to realize that her life greatly impacted both of our lives in completely different ways. Yet, most of her life was lived halfway around the globe from us. How could one person impact so many people? I think if she was here today, she would tell us we all can: through love and kindness.

I believe we can lead incredibly powerful lives no matter where we live. I see the impact that our Haiti Foundation Against Poverty supporters have on our mission and the people we serve. Thousands of people in America have impacted thousands of people in Haiti without ever boarding a plane. Prayers are spoken and answered, because we serve a God that can hear a prayer from one side of the Caribbean Sea and answer it the other. Lives are empowered and families are restored because people purchase products from Gift of Hope Haiti and other job creating artisan groups.

I could go on and on… and I will, in future posts. But today I want to remind us all of this: we are powerful enough to set an example and be someone’s role model. We are powerful enough to empower other people’s lives. We are even powerful enough impact vulnerable people around the world. Our height does not determine our power. Our beauty does not determine our power. Our hearts determine our power.

We simply need to choose to live out this power and purpose with the choices we make everyday. That’s why we are all on this journey! So we can be the real deal within our own purposes, just like Mother Teresa was in hers.

His Kingdom come, His Will be done.
On earth as it is in Heaven.

**Header Photo Details: This photo of Mother Teresa was given to me by my husband’s uncle who worked as the principal of Mother Teresa’s school. When he heard how much I looked up to Mama T, he wanted me to have it. Even as someone who worked directly with her, he did not know the scope of her fame. Her photo is pictured here with Gift of Hope Haiti jewelry made from Majok Seeds - a seed Mother Teresa commonly used in her rosaries.