You heard my plea, “Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief!”
(Lamentations 3.56 NRSV)

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Leo Tolstoy, the world-class novelist and a Christian of strong principles, freed his serfs so they would no longer live in grinding poverty. But Tolstoy overlooked the person right next to him. After he died, his wife, Sonya, wrote this:

"There is so little genuine warmth about him . . . His biographies will tell of how he helped the laborers to carry buckets of water, but no one will ever know that he never gave his wife a rest and never--in all these thirty-two years--gave his child a drink of water or spent five minutes by his bedside to give me a chance to rest a little from all my labors."

Tolstoy, a great Christian in so many ways, was blind to the needs of those closest to him.

Who is close to you that needs your love and helping hand?

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Dear God, help me to not be blind to the needs of those close to me. Amen.

Ron Newhouse

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