“We need 4 hugs a day for survival.

We need 8 hugs a day for maintenance.

We need 12 hugs a day for growth.”

Virginia Satir

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, and gravitation, we shall harness for God the energies of love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire!”

Tielhard de Chardin

Dear God, today I am so happy, I cannot stop smiling! Thank you, God, for all the wonderful blessings in my life! I know that You care for me and that You love me, and that fills me with much joy. My prayer today, dear God, is for everyone in the world to feel joy. Please send joy where it is needed, and I thank You again for all the joys in my life.

Amen

     Moses Mendelssohn, the grandfather of the well-know  German composer, was not handsome. He had a grotesque hunchback.

     One day he visited a merchant in Hamburg who had a lovely daughter named Frumtje. Moses fell hopelessly in love with her. But Frumtje was repulsed by his misshapen appearance. When it came time for him to leave, Moses gathered his courage and climbed the stairs to her room to take one last opportunity to speak with her. She was a vision of heavenly beauty. After several attempts at conversation, Moses shyly asked, “Do you believe marriages are made in heaven?”

     “Yes,” she answered, looking at the floor. “And do you?”

     “Yes, I do,” he replied. “You see, in heaven at the birth of each boy, the Lord announces which girl he will marry. When I was born, my future bride was pointed out to me. Then the Lord added, ‘But you wife will be humpbacked.’”

     “Right then and there I called out, ‘Oh Lord, a humpbacked woman would be a tragedy. Please, Lord, give me the hump and let her be beautiful.’”

     Then Frumtje looked up into his eyes and was stirred by some deep memory. She reached out and gave Mendelssohn her hand and later became his wife.

     There’s a wonderful line that describes this kind of love from the writings of the apostle Paul which says love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

     Bennett Cerf relates this story about a bus that was bumping a back road in the South. In one seat a wispy old man sat holding a bunch of fresh flowers. Across the aisle was a young girl whose eyes came back again and again to the man’s flowers. The time came for the old man to get off. Impulsively he thrust the flowers into the girl's lap. “I can see you love the flowers,” he explained, “and I think my wife would like for you to have them. I’ll tell her I gave them to you.” The girl accepted the flowers, then watched the old man get off the bus and walk through the gate of a small cemetery.

     Love is a very special kind of gift...in order to be loved it is given without thought of a reward coming back. Let’s always remember to love in action as well as in words.

“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.”

1 John 4:16

     A teacher in New York decided to honor each of her seniors in high school by telling them the difference they each made. Using a process developed by Helice Bridges of Del Mar, California, she called each student to the front of the class, on at a time. First she told them how the student made a difference to her and the class. Then she presented each of them with a blue ribbon imprinted with gold letters which read: “WHO I AM MAKES A DIFFERENCE.”

     Afterward, the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact recognition would have on a community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this acknowledgment ceremony. Then they were to follow up on the results and report back to the class in about a week.

     One of the boys went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honored him for helping him with his career planning. He gave him the blue ribbon, two extra ribbons, and said, “We’re doing a class project on recognition, and we’d like you to go out, find somebody to honor, and give them a blue ribbon, then give them the extra ribbon so they can acknowledge a third person to keep this acknowledgment ceremony going. Then please report back to me and tell me what happened.”

   Later that day the junior executive went to his boss, a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and told him he deeply admired him for being a creative genius, and then asked him to acknowledge someone else with the remaining ribbon.

     The boss was greatly surprised to receive the honor. That night he came home and said to his 14-year-old son, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. One of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a blue ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine! I started thinking about whom I would honor and I thought about you. I want to honor you. My days are hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good grades or leaving your room in a mess...but somehow, tonight, I just wanted to let you know that you do make a difference. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!”

     The startled boy  started to sob and sob and couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He looked up through his tears and said, “I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I don’t need to.”

“Do not withhold good from those who deserve it, when it is in your power to act.”

Proverbs 3:27