Just a Word

While at a Mexican restaurant, we asked the meaning of the restaurant’s name and how to pronounce it. “It is Abuelo, the ‘b’ sounds like a ‘w.’ It means grandmother.”

About a year later, while at a local laundromat to wash a large comforter, I sat down to read my book. A cute little Mexican girl came walking by me as her mother put clothes in a dryer.

“Hello, your dress sure is pretty,” I told her. She smiled and walked on making a circle around the building.

On her next circle of the building, she came and sat right by me. I talked to her about washing clothes, the colorful bow in her hair and whatever I could think of. She just smiled.

“I have to take care of my clothes now,” I told her when my washer quit.

As I was getting the comforter into the dryer, I noticed they were leaving. This little cutie started out the door, then she stopped, looked back at me, and said, “Bye, Abuelo.”

Her good-bye left me glowing inside for days. She had honored me with the affectionate term.

I’m sure there are many times when I could bless others with just a word or two. It doesn’t cost me financially to say thank you to the clerk who helped me find an item, or compliment the restroom maid on the cleanliness of the floor. It only takes a moment of my time to tell a policeman, fireman or serviceman “I appreciate your service to our country.”

A kind word spoken has a good effect on others as well as myself.

“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.” Proverbs 25:11 (KJV)

Helen L. Hoover