In the 1920s, a young teenager was having a hard time in life. A kind woman pulled him aside at church one Sunday and handed him the note above. She said to him, “You keep this note until someone needs it more than you do.”

That man kept the note for some 60+ years until the late 1980s. He pulled aside another man at church one Sunday morning. At the time, Ken was going through what he would often say was the hardest thing he’d ever been through in his life — including cancer five times. The then 80-year-old man handed Ken the note and said, “You’re going through a fire right now, and I believe the Lord has shown me when you come out you’re not going to smell like smoke. You keep this note until someone needs it more than you do.”

Ken kept this note with him in his Bible for over 40 years to remind him of who he is and who God is. It’s a great message for all of us to remember that the world does not define us — only God defines us and offers us grace and adoption as His children forever.

It’s an incredible thought to think that Ken Schultz is now in the same place as that unknown woman and that man. They share this incredible thread of grace and truth written on a scrap piece of paper over 100 years ago. It changed lives.

Ken understood the cost of the fires in this broken world.

But he never smelled like smoke after coming through them.

Amen!

Now… who needs a note from you in this season?