The last post I wrote was about how sad a state the world is now in, but today, I’d like to talk about the good souls still in this world. They are the ones who truly do bring light into our days, spread love and joy to those they meet and who put themselves out for anyone in need without asking for anything in return.
There are so many good people around us working diligently each day to make lives of others brighter and easier. Those who devote their time without thought of being good people, to them, it just comes naturally. We have paid workers in caring roles throughout the world, volunteers doing charity work wherever the need takes them, people in our communities helping in a variety of ways, unsung heroes no one sees and people just like you and me who try hard to be pleasant and helpful to others in smaller, but just as important ways.
The unsung heroes are the ones who devote their whole lives to being carers for their parents, children or other loved ones in their homes. People who look after them with no thought for their own lives and what they’re missing out on. Things others take for granted as being part of life. Going to restaurants theatres, parties, holidays and the like. None of those things are there for those who stay at home looking after their loved ones.
To be so unselfish in life is a truly wonderful thing. It is also very sad how carers often have to do it alone twenty four hours a day, seven days a week with no help or breaks given to them. Even sadder, is when we see children as the carers, knowing their future is going to be very limited indeed. How sad for the parents they care for who know their child’s sacrifice, but who are unable to take the burden from them.
Behind the scenes we have incredible people showing what true love means. Love isn’t just about people meeting and forming intimate relationships, it is about loving strangers, animals, plant life and the world in general. People whose love means wanting to be a giver not a taker. People who put everyone and everything before their own needs and wants.
People who can place bad deeds done by others to one side in order to help them are even more special. This is the hardest love to give and manage to acquire. The unconditional love that enables people to love those whose deeds they dislike or whose actions have been truly evil. No matter what a person has done, we don’t know what brought them to that place and why they behaved in such ways.
We might find it very hard to even look at them or to be in the same room as them, but we are asked to love thy neighbour as thyself. There are incredible people in the world who can manage it despite feeling repulsed or scared. They are amazing.
Rather than attacking them for doing such good works to bad people as many do, we should be praising them and looking to them as examples of how we too should strive to be. Remember, Jesus died to save sinners, not the good. It’s His example we should therefore be following. Anyone can help nice or good people. How easy is that? It’s by helping the sinners we are showing we are doing as God asks of us. After all, aren’t we all sinners? We’re just on different scales and levels of sin.
People who can work with and love the truly bad show us the unconditional love God asks of us all. The same sort of love Jesus taught us to have. A love He gives each of us that animals are able to achieve, but very few humans can.
Place a child, an innocent child in the same room as someone who has done something bad and they will treat that person as any other – with an innocence and trust only a child can show.
We may not be able to have the trust a child can, because as adults we know what the person has done and how wrong it is, but we can still be as little children when it comes to being kind and giving.
Anyone is capable of changing if given the opportunity and chance to. We don’t know who will or won’t, but at least we can love them as someone God thought worth creating while encouraging them to come back to goodness.
True love is unconditional. True love is not always about sex or knowing a person and growing to love them as we would family and lovers, it is about loving their soul. The part lying hidden that only God sees in its entirety. It is the person God created because He loved them who we too need to love. The person created from God’s love and who will die in God’s love.
It is this part we need to be seeing and not the bad person they have become right now or that life made them turn into. Love can mend so many things that lie broken. Love can sometimes find a way to get through to even the hardest of hearts if we reach out far enough. It isn’t always possible as we know, but how much nicer the world would be if all of us at least tried?
Spread love not hatred. Say kind words to each other not cruel ones. Say words that lift a person up and praise them rather than ridicule or hurt them. Spread love in the hope everyone’s lives will be enriched from having met even briefly. It doesn’t matter if people laugh at you or with you. If they’re laughing, at least it is nicer to hear their laughter rather than voices raised in anger.
No matter how low a person might sink or how evil their deed, don’t become as them. Instead, show them how love behaves and speaks. Let your love shine wherever you walk today and every day. Yes, life gets in the way and can make us all behave as we’d rather not at times, but those times are part of our growing and learning.
We are human after all and as such, we have human frailties and are far from perfect. The difference in us behaving badly now and then, due to what life or people throw at us, is different to those who behave in such ways for pleasure or to deliberately cause hurt. The rest of the time, we can try our hardest to be the loving, kind and caring person we would like to meet ourselves.
Think of those people throughout the world who are making each day lighter and brighter for so many people whose lives would otherwise be dark, lonely and sad. Think how many do it due to loving others and wanting them to be happy, comfortable or cared for. Whether paid or unpaid, they are like angels walking this earth amongst us, even though we know they aren’t heavenly angels.
Putting others before ourselves can even cure depression and other problems we might have ourselves. Looking to see what we can do for others rather than focusing on ourselves makes us realise how many others there are on the world far worse off than we are. Love them today and allow them to love you back. Spread love not hatred and brighten our world with God’s light, not Satan’s darkness.
God showed His love for us when He sent Jesus into the world to give us life. Let us show our love for others today by giving them life, but just in a different way.
