Last week my friend Marion went home to heaven. I met her when I was a fresh-out-of-college new teacher and she was the school secretary, working part-time while raising their 10 children! That alone made me admire her... not to mention that they raised those children in a lovely older house, that had only one bathroom! Marion was the epitome of kindness. She was so smart and insightful yet emanated a humility and grace.

She helped me through a tough time and in that, changed the trajectory of my life by the way she drew me into her faith. Something about the way Marion loved others made me connect beliefs of faith with the everyday relationships that are the landscape of life. She never preached, yet everything I have come to know about Jesus, she embodied.

I wish I could remember some profound thing she said. But what comes to heart is feeling her warmth, gentleness, and her generosity listening to me sort out how to grow up. Those conversations, bit by bit, wove a wholeness I could trust to build my life on. I truly wonder who I would be if she hadn't loved me at such a vulnerable time of my life.

What this has led me to reflect is how we never know how important we might be to someone. At her funeral I sat in the back of the chapel. Her children, their spouses, grandchildren mourned their significant loss. I was in awe that with all those people she had to love that she had found time to love me. And I mourned that in the blur of my own busy life I don't know if I shared with her how much I appreciated her.

You never know the influence you are having on another, sharing your faith, meeting another with unconditional regard, being lavish with kindness, or giving someone radical respect. We don't know where the gifts of our goodness will grow. Sometimes we don't know where we have dropped the seeds of faith in another's heart that might sometime blossom into love.