When I was a young boy we lived just down the road from a public swimming pool. During the summer months I would be there almost everyday swimming and playing for hours. The best thing of all was they had a concession stand there. You could buy a cup of coca cola for 15 cents and a bag of chips was only a dime. Often my Mom or Nana would give me a quarter before I left so I could have a snack there. Sometimes, though, they weren’t home or were busy working. That is when I would try the couch cushions.

I would pull them out and stretch my little arms deep into the crevices of the couch or my Dad’s recliner hoping to find some spare change that had fallen out of someone’s pockets. Often to my delight I would find a dime or a dime and a nickle and sometimes even a quarter. Then I would run off to the swimming pool with change in my hand and happiness in my heart.

It is only recently, however, that I realized I found change there an awful lot during the summertime. I remember looking between the cushions in the winter a few times and not even finding a penny. Although I never saw them I think that Mom, Nana, Dad, or all three of them would drop change down there for me to find. They did so knowing it would make my day and bring a smile to my face. Of course, they never said a word about it even after I had grown up. I guess some secrets are too good to share.

I think that maybe an unseen act of kindness has a special joy to it. You get no appreciation or thanks for it, at least not to your face. Yet, it fills your heart with happiness. You know that you are helping another. You know that you are making someone’s life better. And you know that you are making this world a more loving and joyful place. But, no act of kindness is ever truly unseen. God sees them all. God loves them all. And God smiles down upon them all.

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. (Matthew 6:1-4 NIV)

Joseph J. Mazzella