Heartprints

We leave fingerprints on doorknobs, on books, on walls, on keyboards. Since each person’s fingerprints are unique, we leave our identity on everything we touch. Some supermarkets are even testing a technology that allows customers to pay by finger print. Each customer’s unique print and bank account number are kept on file so that thing needed to pay a bill is a scan of their finger.

A woman in the early church left another kind of print – a “heartprint”. Dorcas touched many people’s lives through her unique gift of sewing and giving away garments. She’s described as “full of good works and charitable deeds” [Acts 9:36]. We too are are to be “zealous for good works” [Titus 2:14]. We each have a unique heartprint that can touch another.

An unknown author wrote this prayer about encouraging others: “O God, wherever I go today, help me leave heartprint! Heartprints of compassion, understanding, and love. Heartprints of kindness and genuine concern. May my heart touch a lonely neighbor or runaway daughter or anxious mother or even an aged grandfather. Send me out today to leave heartprints. And if someone should say, ‘I felt your touch,’ may that one sense Your love touching through me.”

And Christmas is the perfect time to start leaving heartprints. It starts from your own heart, and make it a habit and you’ll know you’re like the richest kid in town for touching people’s lives with kindness and love. And that’s more than a gift-giving. It’s about making this world a happy place to live.