Finding Faith ... in a message of love from a young neighbor girl

EDITOR'S NOTE: In October 2021 I began a new venture writing a newspaper column titled "Finding Faith" for the Forum Communications Co. network of newspapers and websites. I was asked to contribute to the company's ongoing conversation about faith, lending a Lutheran and fairly ecumenical approach to the discussion. The column was published in several of the company's papers and websites, including The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead. This column originally appeared as a "Finding Faith" column on May 31, 2024.

By The Rev. Devlyn Brooks

My neighbor wants you to know something: “You are enough.” 

And from a pastoral standpoint, I couldn’t agree more. You are enough! … Just the way you are, the way God intended you to be!

I spotted my neighbor’s kind message written in colorful chalk on their driveway when I was walking the dogs one night this week. … Luckily for me, I got to see it before the seemingly constant spring rains washed it away!

I can’t be sure, since an entire family lives at the house, but my heart hopes that the message was written by the young girl who lives there. Sure, the message wouldn’t be any less true if it were one of the adults who who wrote it.

But the idea that the elementary school-aged girl there might possess this grownup insight, as well as want to pass it along to all who just happen by, well … this notion just warms my heart and gives me hope that the next generation might be a little kinder to each other.

After all, the reason so many people don’t feel they measure up is that we buy into the fallacy that we need to be something more than the beautiful and unique children of God we were born to be.

At a young age, we are tricked into believing that just isn’t enough. And so we feel we need to be smarter, taller, thinner, richer, funnier, more beautiful, more popular, more talented, more photogenic … and the list goes on and on, doesn't it? There is no end to the ways that our shallow society expects us to measure up.

The lie, of course, is that society never quite explains to us why we must live up to these expectations. But we think if they’re enough to drive our neighbors, then it must be important we make the grade too, right?

Our young neighbor, though, isn’t buying what our culture is selling. Rather, she’s become counterculture by accepting that whomever the folks passing by her driveway are, well … they are enough … just by being who they are.

I find that beautiful!

I pray that her kindness reaches those who need to hear that message, and more importantly, I pray that her message is amplified throughout our neighborhood. Maybe it’ll start a movement of neighbors being kinder to themselves, and therefore to each other.

You see, that’s the wonder of small acts such as this: One just never knows how this counterculture bravery may reverberate. But you can trust that the Holy Spirit will magnify her simple act of love. Just exactly how, we may never know.

I do know, though, that no act of love is wasted, and that is exactly what this girl’s message was.

Devlyn Brooks is an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and serves Faith Lutheran Church in Wolverton, Minn. He blogs about faith at findingfaithin.com, and can be reached at devlynbrooks@gmail.com.