Smile! You Are Beautiful!

  

Years ago, when I was probably about sixteen or seventeen, I found some notes in my car. In those days, and in the town where I lived, we never bothered to roll up our car windows in the summer, never mind lock the doors. I had gone into some shop or another and when I came out a note had been placed on the driver's seat of my car that said, "Smile, God loves you." I thought that was kind of cool, and I did smile. I went on my merry way and stopped at another shopping center for another errand. When I came out I found another note on the same kind of paper with a smile-y face and the message, "Jesus cares." I have to admit, at that point I was a bit freaked out. I remember looking quickly around to try to see who had put it there. Who was following me?

Nothing transpired from those events...no one approached me, no one followed me home, nothing. Even though it was kind of freaky that they had followed me from store to store, I thought it was nice that someone had taken the time to tell me that God loved me. This was not something I was not familiar with at that time in my life. Two years and a lot of heartache would pass before I met Jesus personally and made Him Lord of my life.  I can only conclude, to this day, some 30 years later, that it had to be either someone I knew who preferred to remain anonymous, or someone who simply had a heart to reach out to others but for whatever reason didn't want to go about it directly. Whatever the case, I have carried in my heart that memory and the little spark of happiness those gestures gave me for these 30 years. I seriously believe that it was in those moments that God began to deal with my heart and draw me to Himself, culminating with the start of a new life when I received Jesus as my Lord and Saviour two or three years later.

This memory came back to me the other day when I came across this:

www.operationbeautiful.com

Photo credit:
flickr.com/photos/rayguntv/2306213245/