p. 13 | Let Me Make Somebody Happy Today by L. K. W.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Jul 30, 1914

“Let Me Make Somebody Happy Today”

By L. K. W.

A WOMAN of the writer’s acquaintance, who has had a lot of trouble, who has known the sorrows of the world, and who has bravely withstood many storms, makes the above sentence her morning prayer to God.

What a simply worded petition, but what a great and generous nature it reveals. “Let me make somebody happy today!” She, who has every reason to be sad, will not allow her own troubles to come between her and her duty to others. She considers it her life work to make people happy, and she has succeeded in doing so for more than a decade. There is nothing aggressive about this lovely little woman. She is slender and tall, with great blue eyes that look like violets, and she has dark brown hair. She lives simply in a small house, and she has nothing in the way of luxuries, but she has friends by the hundreds. People come from far and near just to call on her and to lay their burdens at her feet. She never fails to welcome those who need her, and she is so sweet and gentle and kind that it is no wonder people adore her. Yet that is not what she strives for. Her aim is to make people happy, that is, to make them more contented with their lot, and to make them realize that God has a work for them to do which nobody else in the world can do quite so well. It is her aim to try to help people find themselves. She has succeeded in doing this in scores of cases, and hence her prayer, “Dear God, let me make somebody happy today,” is being answered in wonderful ways. Isn’t this a prayer that any of us could make each day? It doesn’t matter at all whether we live in New York City or on the smallest farm in the world. It does not matter whether we are as rich as a Vanderbilt or as poor as the proverbial “church mouse.” We each and all can make somebody happy each day if we try, and if we ask God to show us how. It is wonderful what a keen insight one will acquire when he lives close to God, and heeds his voice, which may be spiritually discerned in hundreds of ways, if the scales have fallen from one’s eyes. Prayer is the best spiritual oculist.

Suppose each of you, my dear readers, try out the plan of my friend,—try it out for one week, even. I know that if you do you will make the sentence a part of your daily prayer for all time to come. Not only because of your love for your fellow men, but because every time you make another human being happy, you are going to feel a little warm glow of contentment stealing about your own heart, and you will be radiantly happy yourself, before you are aware.

Dear Lord, let us each and all make somebody happy today.—L. K. W.