I am on a Week Without Walls trip this year with 16 high school students at Home Of Loving Faithfulness. It is a home for the severely mentally and physically handicapped, its a place where familys who can no longer look after them can make sure they get the care and attention they need. It is indeed an amazing place.

I remember the first time I came to Home Of Loving Faithfulness about a year and a half ago and how awkward I felt. Not really sure on what I would be able to do, they seemed to severely disabled and I was not sure how to interact with them. Like I felt like I wanted to care, but I just didn’t know how.

It’s also in places like this sometimes I can find it hard to understand why things like this happen to people. Sometimes these places open more questions for me in terms of faith than answers. But over the years I think I have come to a place where I am more at peace with the mystery of God, that somehow all of this all fits into a bigger story that is beyond my comprehension. And what God is doing in this world and in our lives, the good and the bad is ultimately working for a greater good that I can not understand or see.

That the residents, are here for a purpose and that God loves them so incredibly much, that God sees their value and uniqueness. That they deserve and need to be loved as much as you and I.

See, we are created for love. Your soul craves love and will find satisfaction in nothing less. God was the one who created us for love, to experience his love. In the same way the residents were created for love too.

I know a  friend who worked at Mothers Choice in the mid levels. It’s an orphanage that adopts out babies and helps unwed mothers. She told me that in an orphanage babies who don’t get held much and affection tend to be more sickly. She said the physical touch and care makes a huge difference in that babies overall well being. That this is what makes them feel loved.

And I thought how true it is for the residents here. They are like those small babies too, unable to speak or move, given up by their families and in need of care. They may not be able to say it or express it but to be loved is something that they need and what makes us all intrinsically human.

In Matthew 25:34-40 it says:
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the creation of the world.  For I was hungry, and you fed me. I was thirsty, and you gave me a drink. I was a stranger, and you invited me into your home.  I was naked, and you gave me clothing. I was sick, and you cared for me. I was in prison, and you visited me.’

“Then these righteous ones will reply, ‘Lord, when did we ever see you hungry and feed you? Or thirsty and give you something to drink? Or a stranger and show you hospitality? Or naked and give you clothing? When did we ever see you sick or in prison and visit you?’

“And the King will say, ‘I tell you the truth, when you did it to one of the least of these my brothers and sisters, you were doing it to me!’

When we treat each other with value, when we care for each other, when we love, we experience the presence of God and we bring the presence of God into that place.

In a place like this we may not know exactly what we can do to help, we want to be able to do what we can.  When we are with them we want to show them that they are loved, valuable and that they are not forgotten. When we are with the residents to sing to them, engage with them, touch them and talk to them.

I want to engage with them in way that I look them in the eye as if they were the only person in the room and that they really matter. They deserve to be loved and cared for, and that to love is always the right thing to do no matter what the circumstances.

1 Corinthians 13:13 – And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.