Â鶹´«Ã½

Almost all the criteria by which he judges their marital strength is performed subconsciously but is evidence of the truth that lies in Betty Swann’s song, “Little Things Mean a Lot�: “Touch my hair when you pass my chair … Give me your arm as we cross the street … Send me the warmth of a secret smile … little things mean a lot.�

The value of small tokens has preoccupied my mind since I remembered that on today’s date of June 12, in 1942, a little girl in Amsterdam received a birthday present from her parents. It was a red checked diary. Two months later, she and her family entered into hiding from the Nazis who invaded The Netherlands and forced their brand of racism, including their antisemitism, upon The Netherlands.

And Anne Frank began documenting her life in conditions few of us can even begin to appreciate. Today an entire museum is based on the words she wrote in that diary.

A little gift of no big size, but wow! What an incredible impact her insights have made on the world! Little things mean a lot.

While there are thousands, if not millions, of examples of this truth, allow me this one more illustration which enabled a world-saving moment in history, though it’s rarely even given a footnote in the texts. As the military strategists began to realize a victory over the Nazis, all military minds expected a D-Day invasion of France by the Allied powers as inevitable, and all the emphasis of the Navy was upon the huge troop carriers that could ferry soldiers across the English Channel. Only one man seemed concerned about the method of transporting troops from the ships to the beaches. His name was Andrew Jackson Higgins.

Higgins approached the politicians and the Navy, he even went to the ship builders. However, their minds were focused on what they thought were the “big� issues — destroyers and battleships. He could not find an ear for his anxiety.

On his own initiative, even against the wishes of the Navy, he designed and built small, flat bottomed, shallow drafting boats with high sides to protect the landing troops, boats that could deliver the soldiers right up on the beaches by dropping the bow down as a ramp itself. Though tiny in comparison to battleships, in the end, the Higgins Boats (LCVPs) were credited with actually placing a sufficient number of troops on the beaches to win the day and the war.

There is an object lesson which I have often used for children’s sermons but furtively I wanted the listening parents to hear also. Taking an old Mason jar, I place a number of rocks in it so that all can clearly see, and then ask, “Is it full?� Since they can easily observe that no more rocks can fit in, they usually reply, “Yes.� Then I supplement the rocks with enough small pebbles to fall into the spaces between the rocks. Again I ask, “Is it full?� They tend to think it is an answer in the affirmative. I proceed in the same manner with sand and finally with water. Then the jar really is full.

To really make the ultimate point, I reverse the procedure, placing the water in the jar first followed by the sand and then the pebbles. When I want to add the rocks, they will not fit.

At that point I drive home the comparison that the rocks are like the really important matters of our lives — people, parents, family. The pebbles represent the necessary material elements of life — our jobs, education, homes. But the sand and the water, while very consuming of space, time and energy, are those things that are not really important.

When we put unnecessary things first, we often find that there is not room, time or energy for the really high priorities. We may try to blame our mistakes on fads, misleading advertising and the influence by others, but in truth we are each responsible for determining our own priorities.

Little things do mean a lot.