Finding Happiness in Christ (Series 4)Exemplo

Joy, love, and life

And above all things have fervent love for one another, for “love will cover a multitude of sins. (1 Peter 4:8)

A few years ago, I saw something that helped me see life for the first time. It is a documentary about homes for the dying that Mother Teresa started in Calcutta. In that house, there are many diseases, pains, and sufferings. There is also death.

You can tell just by looking that most of those people will die soon. By the time they got to the house, most of them were already so sick that it was hard to get well. Mother Teresa did not create the house as a hospital. She made the house so that people dying on the streets could have a place where they could die with dignity, peace, and love.

This love touched me. The nuns here radiate love to the people they care for. This house is a house of joy, despite suffering and death. Joy and love flow from God through the hearts and souls of the nuns and bless all who are there. The sick and dying know that they are loved. They feel the love of God and the love of the nuns. They die in peace and often even in expressions of joy on their faces.

It was a beautiful thing to look at and showed me for the first time that life is really about the love and joy we choose and share. Without it, life becomes meaningless.  However, with it, life becomes a gift that starts from God to rejoice always.

Let your life always be filled with love and be full of joy. Let you always embrace the precious gift of life that God has given you and live it by giving, caring, and being merciful. May someday you face your death with dignity, peace, and the awareness that you are always loved by the greatest love imaginable.

Reflection: Serving others is how we appreciate God's immense love. Serve whoever God has given to us, not "for whom" but "because of whom." We serve them because God first loved us.

Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. To these, I surrender today. 

(Max Lucas)