By LINDA EVANS SHEPHERD in Leading Hearts Magazine
I FOUND MY MENTOR IN A DARK COLOSSEUM when a young woman sat on a stool, inside a bright spotlight. In a voice that sounded like a child in song she said, “Hi, I’m Ann. I am one simple woman in the world. I have never shaken hands with the president. I cry. Sometimes I am insecure. I am only one, but I have come tonight to tell you I am one … and Jesus and I and love are out to change the world.”
In those days, I was a young college student, totally in love with Jesus, and I had never heard anyone articulate my heart the way Ann Kiemel (Anderson) did. She spoke of love and simple acts of kindness, and how she and our big God could change the world. I followed her example with my own acts of love and kindness.
I learned that everything Ann said about living life sold out to the Lord was true. It was true for me. Through Christ, nothing was impossible.
In her book, i love the word impossible, Ann said,
IMPOSSIBLE means that i an ordinary young woman, can be something special and significant in an enormous, hurting world. i can be love where i live and that is Christ. and he really does make ALL the difference!
In a decades-old interview with Pat Boone, Ann talked about the time she talked to a cabbie who described himself as the loneliest man in the world. Before the ride was over, Ann sang him the Bill Gaither song “Something Beautiful,” a song that shares how God can make something beautiful of our lives.
As she sang, this jaded cab driver sobbed as he realized, for the first time, how much God loved him.“I want your God,” he told her. Ann explained to Pat Boone, “The main thing is I’m just one simple woman in a very big world but one simple person plus a great God can do things like that in the most unexpected moments.”
Even though Ann passed away in 2014 after living a life of love, miracles, sorrow and experiencing life’s tribulations, I follow her example of love and kindness as the Spirit moves me, in tiny ways and on ordinary days.
I’ve gone on to write books and had the privilege to speak around the world, publish Leading Hearts magazine and Arise Daily Devotionals, and lead the Advanced Writers and Speakers Association. But even now, it’s always about the simple, tiny acts of faith. Those facts of faith, done through the love of Christ, really do change the world.
Dear Lord, I really can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. For nothing is impossible with you. Anoint me and show me how to look for those moments you want me to show your love and kindness and make the difference in and through you.
