Smile Devotion

• I want you to think and only think, don’t tell me, of someone at school that perhaps you don’t like very much, or someone who is a bit difficult to get along with or maybe even someone who is a bit different or strange. Now just keep that person in mind.
• Now I want you to think of someone who’s done something really nice for you this week. Tell me, how did that make you feel.
• I’m going to read you a poem now:

Smile

                    She smiled at a sorrowful stranger.

                    The smile seemed to make him feel better.

                    He remembered past kindness of a friend

                    and wrote him a thank-you letter.

                    The friend was so pleased with the thank-you 

                    that he left a large tip after lunch.

                    The waitress, surprised by the size of the tip,

                    bet the whole thing on a hunch.

                    The next day she picked up her winnings,

                    and gave part to a man on the street.

                    The man on the street was grateful;

                    for two days he’d had nothing to eat.

                    After he finished his dinner,

                    he left for his small dingy room.

                    (He didn’t know at that moment

                    that he might be facing his doom.)

                    On the way home he picked up a shivering puppy

                    and took him home to get warm.

                    The puppy was very grateful

                    to be in out of the storm.

                    That night the house caught on fire.

                    The puppy barked the alarm.

                    He barked ‘till he woke the whole household

                    and saved everybody from harm.

                    One of the boys that he rescued 

                    grew up to be the President.

                    All this because of a simple smile

                    that hadn’t cost a cent.

• Now remembering how you felt when that person did something nice for you, think of how the person I asked you to think of first, who was not so nice or so popular, would feel if you just smiled at them once. In the poem just one smile saved a life.
• In the Bible in John 15:17 it says, “love one another” Do you think that what Jesus really meant was only love one another if you all look the same and think the same. I don’t think that’s what he meant. I think what he meant was love one another no matter what differences separate you.
• Now I know it is hard to love some people, or it appears to be so, but maybe if you just started with a smile you could show someone else, who may not be having such a great day that there is someone who cares.
• As Christians we are blessed with the knowledge that someone loves us no matter what our faults may be. Now don’t you think that the best thing we can do is to show someone a tiny bit of that knowledge no matter how small?
• So I want you to go back to school and during the next week, I want you to smile at that person I first asked you to think of. Now I’m not going to ask you if you did it but imagine how great that person would feel if you did!