Remember when you were little, and grownups used to tell you that actions speak louder than words? If you haven’t been reminded of that lately, I have a story for you. It’s a story that a close friend told me, and I hope I never forget it. She said that, decades ago, a famous Christian televangelist – someone whose name you’d recognize – was a guest at her parents’ house. The man was going out to play golf, and he borrowed her father’s white cashmere sweater. The course was wet. His club got muddy, and he wiped it on the sleeve of the white cashmere sweater and put it back in his golf bag. I doubt he ever gave that move another thought. But my friend did. That one-minute maneuver has spoken to her for decades.
It’s the small things, isn’t it? The things we do without really thinking. They’re the ones that say who we really are. And those small things keep speaking long after our words are forgotten.