I WAS SITITING IN AN EYE SURGEON’S WAITING ROOM RECENTLY when I met a very special lady. She had an infant with her that obviously had some serious vision problems. He couldn’t have been more than a few weeks old---a preemie, I think. In any event, I struck up a conversation with her and learned that she was a nurse and that she took into her home, babies that were born premature with special health issues---babies that were without the loving care of parents---babies that would have ended up in some government institution.

You could tell that she really cared for those in her charge by the way she held this little boy. She explained that she had nine infants in her home initially, but three died and that left her with six. Her daughter and daughter-in-law are also nurses and assist her. I was blown away with her obvious concern and compassion for those who needed that kind of love. And I thought to myself, Here’s a person who goes beyond the call of duty because she is compelled by love. It gives you hope that there still are those individuals out there who demonstrate love in a very practical manner. It is more than a slogan; it is a way of life.

I just love stories about folks that reach out to those with special needs---stories of hope and compassion, like the following: On a cruise from Mexico to Hawaii in 1979, Los Angles lawyer John Peckham and his wife, Dottie, put a note in a bottle and tossed it into the Pacific. Three years and 9,000 miles later, Vietnamese refugee Nguyen Hoa leaned down from a tiny, crowded boat and plucked the bottle from the South China Sea---amazed to find a name and address, a dollar for postage and the promise of a reward. “It gave me hope,” said Hoa, who had escaped from a prison camp in Vietnam.

Safe in a UN refugee camp in Thailand, Hoa wrote the surprised Peckhams. For two years they corresponded; Hoa married and had a son. Not long after that, the Peckhams agreed to sponsor the emigration of Hoa and his family. As you can well imagine, when they arrived it was an emotional meeting with the Peckhams---and a new life from an old bottle.

What a beautiful illustration of what the apostle Paul urged upon us in Colossians 3:12: Put on therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion…”
May we strive to live in this manner, believing what Jesus taught us in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the merciful, for they will obtain mercy.”