Kind Words

It was Friday many years ago when a math teacher asked her ninth grade class to list the names of the other students in the class on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name. She then told them to think of the nicest thing they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. That Saturday, that math teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate sheet of paper, and listed what everyone else had said about them. On Monday she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling. No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. A few years later that ninth grade teacher heard about one of those students who had been killed in Vietnam and she went to his funeral. When the funeral was over one of the soldiers who was a pallbearer came up to that teacher and asked her if she had been this soldier ninth grade math teacher? She said yes; then the soldier said he talked about you a lot. After the burial the young man mother said to the teacher I would like to show you something taking a wallet out of her pocketbook. She then said "They found this on my son when he was killed. We thought you might recognize it." Opening the billfold, she carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew those were the papers listing all the good things each of the classmates had said about him. "Thank you so much for doing that," his mother said. "As you can see, he treasured it." Wonderful story I will agree but have we ever stopped to think that we have been loved greatly. That word love is used 311 times in the Bible. In John 3:16 we read how great we are loved “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.“ God’s love for us was so great that He gave His only son to die that this world might have eternal life; now that’s love. Those words should be as precious to you and I as the words that were written on that notebook paper of long ago to that young soldier. But we too must remember life will end one day. And we don't know when that one day will be. So we must tell those we love and care for that they are special and important to us. We must tell them, before it is too late. Our Lord and Savior did. Have you opened your Bible and read His words of love to the point that it may look somewhat like the letter of that Soldier? Had that young man lost his paper it would have been gone forever, not so with God for His love is an everlasting love. If you ware His letter down and the pages began to fall apart and the tears that have fallen from your eyes have made the words hard to read; you can always get another copy…Is God not good? Read His kind and loving words today for He has said some nice things about you and I for He loves us greatly.