Far reaching consequences

Yesterday I attended a shiur where the speaker impressed upon us the consequences of our actions. He related a story he had just heard from a rabbi who had traveled to Mexico to raise funds for his yeshiva in Israel.
The rabbi embarked on a fund raising mission last year and had the occasion to speak to a Mexican audience. Since the rabbi had an illustrious heritage, he and his ancestors had met many Torah luminaries. The audience asked him to tell them a story about a great Torah sage. For some reason, unbeknownst to the rabbi, he started to tell the audience an incident about a man who had approached a great Torah sage, asking him for advice. His son had recently become engaged. After the engagement, he found out that the future bride had a medical condition that might preclude her from having children. The man wanted to know if his son should break the engagement.
The Torah sage excused himself and proceeded to another room where he began pacing to and fro. His wife observed his strange behavior. After the guest had left, she asked her husband what had happened.
The sage explained that he had thought about the problem and came to the conclusion that it wasn't right that the young woman should suffer an embarrassment of a broken engagement. He, therefore, beseeched G-d to provide the soon to be wed couple with children. He then counseled the groom's father to proceed with the wedding. A year later, the young couple was blessed with a child.
The rabbi concluded his story. A year later, he returned to Mexico and a man approached him. He told the rabbi that he had been in the audience the year before and had been facing a similar predicament, undecided about breaking a shidduch because it was unsure whether the future bride would be able to have children. After hearing the rabbi's story about the great sage, the man decided that the wedding should go through. The couple had recently been blessed with a child.
We can not envision the far reaching consequences of our actions and words. But, we see in the rabbi's case how his words contributed to the building of a family and the arrival of a new generation. The above anecdote demonstrates how much our words and actions can influence lives and contribute to a positive outcome.