Wednesday, December 14, 2016

Devotional 12-14-16

Love from the center of who you are; don’t fake it. Run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. --Romans 12: 9-10 (The Message)

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  John 13:34-35

“At the end of the day people won’t remember what you said or did, they will remember how you made them feel.” --Maya Angelou
Camouflage 

I recently spent a day at a zoo with one of my sons. We really enjoyed The Bird House. We walked into a section that was sealed off by doors and plastic chain maille that featured plants, rocks and water. We both saw only one bird. I said, “This is a lot of trouble for one bird.” But then, we started spotting other ones. There’s one, and there’s another one in the corner, and here’s one right in front of our noses and there’re two on that branch... In the end, we found at least a dozen birds in the space. If we hadn’t made the effort, we would have missed most of them.

In our everyday worlds, we see people coming and going but do we really see them? I’d say most people reading this help others on a regular basis. The homeless, hungry, sick. We have programs and agencies to provide help in many forms to those. But what about those who are camouflaged? Did you ever consider that the well groomed, nicely dressed person in front of you at Starbucks is hurting on the inside due to a family crisis? Perhaps the thin, beautiful woman on the next treadmill is terrified that addiction will take her child. Maybe the owner of the perfect house on your street hates his job and is desperately searching for some meaning to his life.

We are called to love one another. Sometimes that takes some effort, often effort to recognize there’s a need in the first place. Here we are in another Advent season. Sadly, people are generally more stressed than usual and we need to make an extra effort to show the love of the one whose birth we are celebrating. Keep you eyes open!
Anita Farrell

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