Even As I Have Loved You

(John 13:34) "...that you love one another, even as I have loved you..."

This past week in the celebration of Easter the Outpatient Department at Redmond Regional Medical Center came together again for their second year to do Easter baskets for the Open Door Home (by the way, thank you to all the nurses in Outpatient, I’m so proud of you as their Director). If you are not familiar with the home, it is a home for children where they have been removed from their current homes for various circumstances.

This is not my first dealing with the home. There is a group of us girl friends that have gone to bake cookies with them. Actually one of my friends had to be excused from this outting because all she could do was run outside and cry after over hearing a little girl ask her daddy over the phone if his cancer was any better. I have gone back on other occasions but not as often as I would like.

These children so crave attention and love. But I am still haunted by the face of one little girl. She looked so lost, so scared. Not because she is not cared for. The staff are awesome at the home. But imagine being removed from your security. I just remember on this particular day as I held this little girl, it came time for me to leave and she would not let go.

Why does this haunt me? Because this, was me as a child.

I was not placed in a home, by the grace of God. But how many of us were one circumstance away from this happening to? I had a grandmother that intervened and cared for me during a difficult time in my parent’s life. These children do not always have this option.

I will never know the child that my basket went to other than he is probably a scared 13-year-old boy with a future. How his future pans out can depend on our community and what it provides for this home. There are too many of us that can mentor and donate to this home. But most of us just drive by it on our way home without giving it a second thought.

Inside his basket was a Bible, hopefully not his first, but a Bible with my prayers for his life.

And if nothing else, you too can pray for these children.

For they are His beloved......

just as we are....

Connie