It is easy for me to emotionally and spiritually respond to situations that connect with my life. I find myself praying often for those involved, staying updated on what is happening, and being willing to help. Have you found this to be the case for you? The question that I have been wondering about, though, is how do we respond to situations that don’t connect with our personal stories? Do we have the capacity to care about, and love, those whose stories are not related to our personal stories? I think that we do!

This week I met an “everyday hero”. His name is Daniel, and he is a plumber. When we bought our current house, I knew that our hot water heater was about twenty-one years old. My hope was that it would die while we had the one-year home warranty that came with our home purchase. Of course, that didn’t happen! Our home warranty expired last week, and I didn’t want to pay to renew it. It has been my plan that as soon as the warranty expired that we would buy a new hot water heater. When hot water heaters go out it is possible for there to be some flooding, which I wanted to avoid. It is easy to have a plan, but it’s not always easy to make it happen! I looked on-line to find a plumber, and that is how I found Daniel.