I Samuel 2:19
“And his mother would make him a little robe and bring it to him from year to year when she would come up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice.”
Samuel’s mother would give him a new robe on her annual visits. She loved her son so. It was a personal gift, as she would make it herself. Samuel was her first born. Her desire to have a child was great. She had to love him from afar, as he lived and served at the temple. The robe was a nice ritual for her. It would take weeks to make. She would sit and lovingly ponder her son as she would sow.
Hopefully we can look back and find evidence of our parent’s love. I can recall my mom at all my sporting events. She would smile whenever we made eye contact. These gifts and acts of love can still warm our hearts, decades after the act.
If we are parents, we are to be doing this for our children. Hopefully they can look back and feel loved by our actions. If we aren’t parents, we can still be generous and caring and perform such acts for those in our lives. I can think of several coworkers over the years who have acted in such a manner. They put in the extra effort to be helpful.
Behaving in such a manner is following the golden rule. Jesus said that we should “do unto others as we would have them do unto us” (Matthew 7:12). We all know how we want to be treated. Our disappointments greatly clarify the things we want. We can treat others this way.
While many like the same things, others wish to be treated differently. The book, “The 5 Love Languages” refers to the manner in which we want to be loved. They are quality time, acts of service, receiving gifts, physical touch and words of affirmation. Each of us have one or two that tend to be dominant. The better we get to know each other the more we learn their love languages. It takes time to treat another in a language that is foreign to us. Just as Hannah loved her son from afar, so we can learn to treat others in ways that are distant to us.
Lord, thank You for those who You put in our lives. The ones who love us as well as the ones we love. Help us to treat them as they wish to be treated.