Word of Life<br/><br/>
As an old Chinese saying goes, “Trees take ten years to mature, people take a hundred.” Indeed, in order for us to develop an impeccable character can take a lifetime. Moreover, it will take special grace from God. Below is the sharing by two of our parish’s youths, who gave witness to how they incorporated God’s words into their lives. Both are second year university students.<br/><br/>
The first is a young lady who studies music. She is quiet and introverted by nature. She said, “In my class, there is one who is even more introverted than me. As a result, she doesn’t have many friends. I am willing to take the first step and deliberately talk to her and attentively listen to her sharing. It wasn’t long before we became very good friends and willingly opened ourselves to each other.” Another experience has to do with her brother. While driving her brother somewhere, she learned that her brother had just had an argument with their father because some of his chores were not yet done. She said, “In order to impress upon my brother the importance of fulfilling responsibility, I turned the car around, drove home, and helped him finish his chores before driving him to where he needed to go.”<br/><br/>
Another student, a young man, has a more obstinate temperament. In his spare time, he helps a friend as a sales person in a fashion boutique. One night, as he was preparing to close up shop, a middle-aged woman entered the store. “I was hoping to close up early because I had to attend a meeting afterwards. But I remembered Jesus said, ‘Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’ So I brought out some of the items that I had already put away and spent some time introducing the different items to this customer.” However, the customer not only did not appreciate the effort, she even told him to save his breath and left soon after. “In the past, I would have confronted her and argued. This time, my reaction was very calm because my intention was simply to express love through my actions. What surprised me what that, after ten minutes, that lady came back to the store and said very earnestly, ‘Sorry!’”