do everything with a smile

The value for the month along at the school is 'Happiness'.

Start the year on a positive note. That sort of thing.

The Head was doing the speaking again this morning. To the Primary 1s to 3s. He told them all a story about a boy called Mark. A boy who didn't like school.

You don't need to know the details (it was a story for children, after all). But the thrust of it finally saw Mark being told to take a 'card' from his 'happy' box and follow the instructions that day.

He had a 'happy' box (full of cards which showed him the things that would make him happy) and an 'unhappy' box (full of ... well, you hardly need that explained!).

The card he pulled out said to 'Do everything you do today with a smile'. Which he did.

And, of course, he had a much happier day.

More next week.

A simple, fairly obvious lesson which will help them live their school days in a happier frame of mind.

And it struck me as he spoke like that that it's not really that dissimilar to what the Bible says - Whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Or, as the same guy says elsewhere - always giving thanks to God the Father for everything.

Fairly basic stuff!

I get to help with handing out the certificates - it's great to see how many get given for things like politeness, enthusiasm and making others happy. It's a super school and the Head's doing a great job there.

I got the chance to put the smile into operation right away. As I was walking back to the Halls, a man came up and said that my face was somehow familiar.

I think I must know you from somewhere, he said. I gave him some clues.

Now you're really annoying me, he said. Which was not really meant as it sounded.

I asked him his name and he told me. That sounds vaguely familiar: and now you're really annoying me, I said. A bit of tit-for-tat! But I was having fun - do everything you do with a smile is what the Head had said. I was. And the guy laughed too.

Strange how a person can sometimes be vaguely familiar. As though somewhere and somehow in the distant past you feel you must have come across the man.

I suspect that's how it is for many folk when it comes to talk of the Lord. A vague sort of sense that he's somehow strangely familiar. Their paths have crossed before.

And in part, I suppose, a lot of my time I'm simply making connections: helping folk to see just why it is they have that sense of 'God' and how he can be met and known again.

Most of that's in a one-to-one sort of 'pastoral' type of way. Which has been the way my afternoon, and then, as well, a large part of my evening has been spent.

Two different hospitals through the afternoon. And a range of different folk. Most of whom I hadn't met before - they just happened to be there within the wards in which the people I was visiting are in.

So I chat to them all. I'm kind of sowing those seeds of awareness. Giving a sense that the Lord is maybe familiar to them in ways they hadn't conceived. That he cares for them, even though they don't really know him at all.

One of the ladies I was in to see - I doubt she'd ever have had that much to do with the Lord. But she's happy to have me pray with her and I'm hopeful she'll soon start to see that the Lord is for real.

The evening, too, was mainly one-to-one. A meeting first with a small group of leaders to talk through a coming event. And then on to a complex and vexing situation where the answers are not easy and the progress isn't fast.

For long enough in an issue of this sort, I'm consciously simply skirting round the edge of things. Only very slowly do we ease right in to the heart of it all. It just doesn't work to rush in.

But I think there was progress. And I'm sure that the Lord means to heal and restore.

The person just wants to know how. What steps can be taken towards that end?

As I say, I think there was progress. Teasing out the next few steps.

It's humbling to see how the Lord is at work in a person's life like this.

And I can't but end the day by returning my thanks to the Lord for all that he is doing in this person's life. And for the privilege that it is to be involved in what he's doing.

I end the day with a smile.