Matthew 25:40 - The King will reply, I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.
Having raised us and given us a Christian foundation, our mum passed on to heaven in December 1999. While alive, among her friends, there was a group of women who were from her home community and had ended up marrying and living in Nairobi. These women were also Christians and did ministry together. They also visited each other in turns and we were acquainted with most of them generally and some of them more specifically. They were present after the immediate death of our mother and kept checking on us periodically after her passing on. My sisters and I were all grownups, just beginning our twenties. I was 21 and our last born – my brother - was 17 years old then and still in high school. In the first year after mom’s loss, words cannot describe the effect that those women had on us whenever they visited and later whenever we bumped into them on the street and they recognized us and said hello.
My mother’s best friend personally took us under her wing for a couple of years, with our immature personalities, expectations and other issues that each of us had then. I can’t explain what effect we felt when one of the women spoke in mother tongue just as they would speak when our mother was among them, prepared similar meals and generally considered us their own. Years later, I hardly see these women but their impact remains.
Recently, I was hanging out with a friend who is already married with two young children. We were discussing about a particular lady who had recently lost her son and was a friendly church elder to me but much closer to my friend. My friend who lost her mother at a very young age spoke of how she warmed up to this lady because of feeling a motherly presence. Even though she is happily married, she felt the much needed motherly love from almost a total stranger.
In our broken world today, so many are without parents, close family or even friends they trust. We don’t have to be close to a person or child first, in order to be a blessing to them and make impact. We can be that person that gives a word of encouragement, offers parental love, guidance and friendship. We can be that person who provides a week’s groceries to a needy family, beginning with our own relatives and that person that prays for the needs of others. The bond is already existent. We are human. We are neighbors.
1 Timothy 5:1-2 - Exhort an older man as if he were your father. Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.