We leave fingerprints on doorknobs, on books, on walls, on keyboards. Each person’s fingerprints are unique, so we leave our identity on everything we touch. Some supermarkets are even testing a technology that allows customers to pay by fingerprint. Each customer’s unique print and bank account number are kept on file so that the only thing needed to pay a bill is a scan of their finger.

A woman in the early church left another kind of print—a “heartprint.” Dorcas touched many people’s lives through her unique gift of sewing and giving away garments. She’s described as “full of good works and charitable deeds” (Acts 9:36). We too are to be “zealous for good works” (Titus 2:14). We each have a unique heartprint that can touch another.

An unknown author wrote this prayer about encouraging others: “O God, wherever I go today, help me leave heartprints! Heartprints of compassion, understanding, and love. Heartprints of kindness and genuine concern. May my heart touch a lonely neighbor or runaway daughter or anxious mother or even an aged grandfather. Send me out today to leave heartprints. And if someone should say, ‘I felt your touch,’ may that one sense Your love touching through me.”

Will you make this your prayer today?  — Anne Cetas