The day was Thankful Thursday, our “designated day” of service. Driving along a busy Houston road, praying for guidance in our quest to fulfill our weekly Act of Kindness, the noon hour appropriately triggered hunger pangs in my two little ones.

They wasted no time in forcing me to pull over at the nearest McDonald’s. Suddenly I realised that almost every intersection I passed through was occupied by a panhandler. If my two little ones were hungry, then all these panhandlers must be hungry, too. Perfect! Our Act of Kindness had presented itself.

I ordered an additional 15 lunches and we set out to deliver them. We had come to the end of our “route” and there was a small woman standing there, asking for change. Just as I delivered her the lunch packets she said, “No one has ever done anything like this for me before.”

She just looked at me with her huge, tired brown eyes and said, “Oh honey, I’m not going to eat this lunch. You see, I have a little girl of my own at home and she just loves McDonald’s, but I can never buy it for her because I just don’t have the money. But you know what… tonight she is going to have McDonald’s!”

I don’t know if the kids noticed the tears in my eyes. So many times I had questioned whether our Acts of Kindness were too small or insignificant. Yet in that moment, I recognised the truth of Mother Teresa’s words: “We cannot do great things — only small things with great love.” — Beliefnet.com