Where there is great love, there are always great miracles!

One morning as I neared the hospital where I worked, I noticed a frail, stooped, elderly man hurrying in the same direction. I wondered where he was going in such a hurry and at such an hour. I also questioned whether it was safe for him to be out alone in his obviously poor state of health.

Later that day, I was surprised to see the same man walking down a corridor in the hospital. I found out he had always enjoyed helping other people, so one day he had come to the hospital and offered to work as a volunteer. He comes two mornings each week to work in whatever way he is needed. He enjoys the interaction with the staff, the patients, and their families. By helping others, he has been able to forget his own health problems. In giving of himself, he has found a new lease on life and a new reason to get up in the morning.

- Author Unknown

* * *
Sometimes we’re discouraged and think, “Well, who am I? What can I do? The world’s problems all seem so hopeless and impossible! It looks like there’s nothing one person can do to change things for the better, so what’s the use of trying?” And we’re tempted to just give up and let the world go to Hell, which it seems to deserve!

Well, you may not be able to change the whole world, but you can change your part of the world. If you have changed one life, you have changed a part of the world, and you have proven that there is hope that it can all be changed! The world can be changed, starting even with one person, just one person–maybe you!

If you even change your life, you’ve changed a whole universe, the universe of your body and the sphere in which you live! The place and the very atmosphere around you will be changed if you even change yourself by the power of God’s Love!

Change the world in which you live–your life, your home, your family–and you’ve changed the world, your world!

- David Brandt Berg

* * *
Hugs

It’s wondrous what a hug can do,
A hug can cheer you when you’re blue.
A hug can say, “I love you so.”
Or, “Oh, I’m sad to see you go.”

A hug is, “Welcome back again!”
And, “Great to see you!” or,
“Where’ve you been?”
A hug can soothe a small child’s pain
And bring a rainbow after rain.

The hug! There’s just no doubt about it,
We scarcely could survive without it.
A hug delights and warms and charms;
It must be why God gave us arms!

Hugs are great for fathers and mothers,
Sweet for sisters, swell for brothers.
And chances are some favorite aunts
Love them more than potted plants.

Kittens crave them. Puppies love them.
Heads of state are not above them.
A hug can break the language barrier,
And make the dullest day seem merrier.

No need to fret about the store of ‘m,
The more you give,
The more there are of ‘m.
So stretch those arms without delay
And give someone a hug today!

- Author Unknown

* * *
Harry Mudd has learned a lot in his many busy years as Director of the Great House Experimental Husbandry Farm since it began many years ago.

He knows that all good farmers are attached to their animals, and have a sensitive regard for them. He says: “A stockman learns to appreciate the animals and understand their little ways, and treat them as individuals–not a collective herd.”

He told me a surprising fact: Two men can have the same kind of stock, the same conditions, and feed them the same food, yet the one who treats his cows as individuals can get two hundred gallons of milk a year more from an animal.

If animals respond to love and care, how much more will people?

- Francis Gay

* * *
Jesus said, “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matthew 22:39). Those He was speaking with then asked Him, “Who is my neighbor?” And with the story of the Good Samaritan, He tried to show them that it is anyone who needs our help, regardless of their race, creed, color, nationality, condition–or location!

For if we have real love, we can’t face a needy situation without doing something about it. We can’t just pass by the poor man on the road to Jericho! We must take action like the Samaritan did! (See Luke 10:25-37.)

That’s the difference between pity and compassion: Pity just feels sorry; compassion does something about it.

- David Brandt Berg

* * *
One day in France, during World War I, I did a favor for a soldier and he actually presented me with his Croix de Guerre which the French Government had bestowed upon him for courage. He could afford to give me that one, for that boy actually had so many medals for bravery that he had them to spare. It was over that gift that we got to discussing why armies and governments give medals, and I learned for the first time that they give medals to a man when he does something “outside the line of duty.” He is never rewarded for doing something which comes within the line of duty. It is only when he steps outside the path of duty and does the unusual, the extra thing, that he wins a medal.

We do not win the richest rewards of life for doing the things we ought to do anyway, or for doing things with the hope and expectation of reward. It is by doing things in the spirit of “not letting thy right hand know what thy left hand doeth” that we discover golden keys to life: when we do something through sheer compassion, sympathy, love, and friendship.

- Author Unknown

* * *
“This is My commandment, that ye love one another, as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

* * *
Living in His Love

Love is like a stream.
Some days it flows and rushes,
For there is plenty.
On other days it trickles

And you can see it bouncing
Against the unseen rocks.
But when love is dry
And has lost its flow

And lies nearly empty
On the muddy bottom,
There is more love to come.
We remember how Jesus loved,

How He forgave,
And how He reached out
To show He cared.
By using Jesus as the Source

Of love,
We can fill up the stream
Again.
Life has the extra dimension
Found in Jesus Christ.
He is the Authority on love.

Jesus loves when love is hard.
He loves when love is rejected.
He loves when love makes
Little sense.

Jesus loves when others
Would quit.
Jesus loves when others
Are ugly.
Jesus loves when others
Are cold.
Jesus loves when others
Are unworthy.

And when we feel that love
Has dried up,
We reach out to Him,
And learn to love
Again.

- Author Unknown

Love Reaches Out, Copyright © 1998-2012, The Family International