LOVE

Well the month of love is fast approaching us!
I have been thinking about it a lot.
Thinking about the people I love and Love in general. For my book club I have reading "The Hiding Place" It's a true story from the Holocaust. The main character in the book is a girl and she lives in Holland, although at the time of the Holocaust she is in her 40's... her family is christian, but they love everyone. 3 of her aunts lived with her family as they got old, as well as 10 foster children after her and her brothers and sisters were grown. Her mom also wrote happy notes to people and always cared for the poor and needy. I wanted to share a passage from the book, because it made me cry. Her mom at this point had a stroke and could not talk, yet they cared for her and talked to her cause she could say "yes" and "no" and they would ask her questions until she got her point across. I have a background in home health and I can tell you that not all aging people get that kind of love. Anyway the passage is....

" Mama, I'll bet it's someones birthday!" and I would call out names until I heard her delighted, "yes" then I would write a little note saying that mama had seen the person and wished her a happy birthday. At the close I always put the pen in her stiffened fingers so she could sign it. An angular scrawl was all that was left of her beautiful curling signature, but it was soon recognized and loved all over Haarlem.
It was astonishing, really, the quality of life she was able to lead in that crippled body, and watching her during the three years of her paralysis, I made another discovery about love,
Mamas love had always been the kind that acted itself out with soup pot and sewing basket. But now that these things were taken away, the love seemed as whole as before. She sat in her chair at the window and loved us. She loved the people she saw in the street-and beyond. her love took in the city, the land of Holland, the world, And so I learned that love is larger that the walls which shut it in."

...I guess this touched me because I Imagine that as being what charity should be, the pure love of Christ. The very foundation that ALL love should be based. Not only the love her mom had for others, but that a family would help someone in her state have such a quality of life. like I said maybe it's because I worked with the elderly for 7 years, But how wonderful it would be if we could all just take a little of that with us through our day.

Maybe we could think of something we could do for someone else this valentine season that would spread that Pure love... charity to those around us...