Great Love
Years ago I read a story of a woman who did a great deal of good for the world. She donated millions of dollars to good causes. She gave of herself and her time to charitable work in every way you could imagine.
One time she visited a facility for severely disabled children. These children were orphans or had been abandoned by their overwhelmed parents.There was one little child that no one wanted to spend time with. The child was about one year old. She was deaf, blind, retarded and had sores that caused her to smell badly. This lady went over to this bereft child, and held her on her lap and hugged and kissed her and talked to her as if she mattered.
When this woman went to Heaven, the gates of Heaven opened for her immediately. In fact, she was ushered in ahead of everyone else there that day. She was astonished and asked why she was first. Was it the money she had given?
The angels said no.
Was it because of all the charitable work she had done?
The angels said no. It was none of those.
What was it then? she asked.
Can’t you guess? the angels said.
No, she couldn’t.
The angels finally told her: “God wanted you so honored because of the day you held the little child on your lap.�
***
Obviously, that story has stuck with me. It feels so right. And yet I wonder what it is that makes this story lasting and so important to me.
Sometimes I think it is because the woman was innocent and didn’t know she had done a great thing. Sometimes I think it is because the story makes clear the difference between how the world looks at things and how God does. Sometimes I think it is because I remember my second-grade teacher who held me on her lap on my birthday, and what it meant to me, what it still means to me. Sometimes I think it is because the woman simply did an heroic thing for that little child — the woman saw a need and filled it, and was able to. I do not know that I would have been able to.
Then sometimes I think it is because that story lets me know there is much unsung kindness in this world.
And then sometimes I love the story because it shows that God lives in the woman and the little girl, and that God rises supreme, and that God really does exist and is to be believed in.
***
Right after I had finished writing this, I found Pam’s response to #2468 God Loves Us on the forum. This is the dumpling Heavenletter where God pinches our cheeks etc. Pam wrote:
This first paragraph brought back such a sweet memory of my step-grandfather and our first meeting. After a long car trip from Michigan to Minnesota to our first meeting with the family of my brand-new stepfather, we certainly did not know what to expect. What I got was a man who RAN to the car, swooped me out of the backseat in a hug, then swung me around and around in circles. He won my heart. It might have been the only good thing this man had ever done in his life, but what a good thing it was for me. To me, in that moment, he was pure love. I’m feeling that hug and that dance now and forevermore in Godde’s love.
Just reading Pam’s account of this man’s wonderful love enriches me. I never knew a grandfather of any kind, and I wish this man could have been my grandfather. One swing in his arms would have lasted me a lifetime.
May all God’s children be greeted the way this man greeted Pam.
Even if this is the only good thing Pam’s stepgrandfather ever did, it was superb, surely superb enough to have earned him his place in Heaven.
Of course, from reading Heavenletters, we know we all get to Heaven. Then, I vote for this man to have a special seat of honor right up front. Okay, yes, we all sit up front anyway. Then let me be blessed to sit beside this man.
Godwriting is a blog by Gloria Wendroff and is about Gloria's daily life as the Godwriter of the Heavenletters project that is having a profound effect on the lives of people around the world.
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