Hello and welcome to today's encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading titled Seeing a Need was written by Cindy Hess Casper.

In the last few days of my dad's life, one of the nurses dropped by his room and asked me if she could give him a shave.

As Rachel gently pulled the razor across his face, she explained,

older men of his generation like to have a neat shave every day.

Rachel had seen a need and acted on her instinct to show kindness, dignity, and respect to someone.

The tender care she provided reminded me of my friend Julie, who still paints her elderly mother's nails,

because it's important to her mom that she look pretty.

Acts 9 tells us about a disciple named Dorcas, also known as Tabitha,

who showed kindness by providing hand-made clothing for the poor.

When she died, her room was filled with friends who tearfully mourned this kind woman who loved helping others.

But Dorcas's story didn't end there.

When Peter was brought to where her body lay, he knelt and prayed.

In God's power, he called her name by saying,

Tabitha, get up!

Amazingly, Dorcas opened her eyes and rose to her feet.

When her friends realized she was alive, word spread quickly through her town, and many people

believed in the Lord.

And how did Dorkas spend the next day of her life?

Probably exactly as she had before, seeing the needs of people and filling them.

Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Acts chapter 9, verses 36 through 42.

In Joppa, there was a disciple named Tabitha.

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