By: Steve Wilmot
Edgerton, Ohio
Millions of Americans rank “It’s A Wonderful Life” as their favorite Christmas movie. Every Christmas Eve, families huddle around their television sets to remember its timeless message.
The Frank Capra film tells the story of a simple man — George Bailey — living a pointless life in a dead-end town. He aspires to see the world and make his mark. Instead, he’s stuck in a dinky town as an ordinary person.
George gets so frustrated he finally decides he’s worth more dead than alive. He contemplates suicide as he stands on a bridge overlooking a treacherous river in a winter storm.
Before he can, God sends his guardian angel named Clarence to rescue him and show him the differences he’s already made in the lives of many people in Bedford Falls.
Over the next few hours, Clarence shows him his life from another perspective. George discovers many lives he’s touched, even though he was unaware of it. His life wasn’t wasted and pointless after all.
The reason the story of George Bailey draws us is because we hope it reflects our own lives. Like George Bailey, we live in a small town and sometimes feel like we’re not making much of a difference in anyone’s life. We want to, but we think we can’t.
But Capra’s classic opens our eyes a bit to see that maybe — just maybe — we can.
I read recently about an elderly floor maid who worked at the Tewksbury Institute. A visiting doctor nearly ran her over. After apologizing, he asked her the history of the place.
She led him to a small prison cell in the basement and told him, “That’s the cage where they kept Annie.”
Annie was a young girl brought to the Institute by her parents because no one could do anything with her. She’d bite, scream, and throw food at people. Even the doctors and nurses couldn’t get close to her without being spit at and scratched.
The maid told the doctor she wanted to help Annie but didn’t see how. After all, if the professionals couldn’t, what might someone like her do?
One night, she baked Annie some brownies and took them to her the next day. She carefully approached the cage and said, “Annie, I baked these for you. I’ll put them right here on the floor, and you can have them.”
Annie took them and ate them, and she began to talk to the maid. To make a long story short, because of this small act of kindness, Annie allowed the doctors and nurses to help her. She even studied and became a teacher herself.
Years later, Annie returned to the Tewksbury Institute to visit and see what she might do to help. They handed her a letter about a man’s daughter who was blind and deaf and acted like an animal. No one could help her.
Her father didn’t know what to do, but didn’t want to put his daughter into an asylum. So he wrote to the Institute to inquire if they knew anyone who would come to his house and work with his daughter.
And that’s how Annie Sullivan became the lifelong companion of Helen Keller.
When Helen Keller received the Nobel Prize, reporters asked her who had made the biggest difference in her life. Without hesitation, she said, “Annie Sullivan.”
Annie disagreed. “No, Helen, the woman who had the greatest influence on both our lives was the floor maid at the Tewksbury Institute.”
Lives are changed when one person dares to ask, “What can someone like me do?”
What stands out in this true story is that we’re familiar with the names of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller, but we don’t know the name of the floor maid who made the greatest difference of all in their lives.
Friends, it’s ordinary, unknown people who live in relative obscurity who change lives. People like George Bailey and the floor maid. People like you.
Had there been no floor maid who took a few minutes to bake brownies and offer them to Annie, where might the lives of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller have ended up?
Could you not ask the same question about the people in your life? Where might they end up if YOU don’t make a difference in their lives?
What you do doesn’t have to be earth-shattering. You can tutor an hour a week at the elementary school, or give someone a hug, or send one card of encouragement to someone each week, or add something to your daily prayer list, or keep your grandkids overnight once a week, or pay attention to a little child. It doesn’t have to be big or hard.
You don’t have to be anyone special. All you need is to be willing. God will do the rest. Bring what you have — your fish and loaves of bread — and God will feed the multitude with it.
(This column was first published on January 21, 2010, and is included in “Best of Pastor’s Ponderings,” available on Amazon.)
———————–
Steve Wilmot is a former Edgerton, Ohio area pastor who now seeks “to still bear fruit in old age” through writing. He is the author of seven books designed to assist believers to make steady progress on their spiritual journey.