SHOWING GOD'S LOVE !!

[ANKITA]

SHOWING GOD'S LOVE

Doug Nichols went to India to be a
missionary, but while he was
just starting to study the language he became
infected with tuberculosis
and had to be put in a sanitarium.

It was not a very good place to be. It was
not very clean and
conditions were difficult because there were so
many sick people there.
But Doug decided to do the best he could in that
situation. So he took a
bunch of Christian books and tracts and tried to
share the gospel with
the other patients in the sanitarium.

But when he tried to pass out tracts, no one
wanted them.  He tried
to hand out books, but no one would take them. He
tried to talk with
them, but he was handicapped because of his
inability to communicate in
their language, and he felt so discouraged.

There he was. Because of his illness he
would be there a long time.
But it seemed like the work that he had been sent
to do would not be
done because no one would listen to him.

Because of his tuberculosis, every night at
about 2 o'clock he
would wake up with chronic coughing that wouldn't
quit. Then one night
when he awoke he noticed across the aisle an old
man trying to get out
of bed. He said the man would roll himself up
into a little ball and
teeter back and forth trying to get up the
momentum to get up and stand
on his feet. But he just couldn't do it. He was
too weak.

Finally, after several attempts the old man
laid back and wept. The
next morning Doug understood why the man was
weeping. He was trying to
get up to go to the bathroom and didn't have
enough strength to do that.
So his bed was a mess and there was a smell in
the air.

The other patients made fun of the old man.
The nurses came to
clean up his bed and they weren't kind to him,
either. In fact, one of
them even slapped him in the face. Doug said that
the old man just laid
there and cried.

Doug said, "That next night about 2 o'clock
I started coughing
again. I looked across the way and there was the
old man trying to get
out of bed once more. I really didn't want to do
it, but somehow I
managed to get up and I walked across the aisle
and I helped the old man
stand up."

But he was too weak to walk, so Doug said,
"I took him in my arms
and carried him like a baby. He was so light that
it wasn't a difficult
task. I took him into the bathroom, which was
nothing more than a dirty
hole in the floor, and I stood behind him and
cradled him in my arms as
he took care of himself."

"Then I carried him back to his bed and laid
him down. As I turned
to leave he reached up and grabbed my face and
pulled me close and
kissed me on the cheek and said what I think was
`Thank you.'"

Doug said, "The next morning there were
patients waiting when I
awoke and they asked if they could read some of
the books and tracts
that I had brought. Others had questions about
the God I worshiped and
His only begotten Son who came into the world to
die for their sins."

Doug Nichols says that in the next few weeks
he gave out all the
literature that he had brought, and many of the
doctors and nurses and
patients in that sanitarium came to know Jesus
Christ, too.

He said, "Now what did I do? I didn't preach
a sermon. I couldn't
even communicate in their language. I didn't have
a great lesson to
teach them. I didn't have wonderful things to
offer. All I did was take
an old man to the bathroom and anyone can do
that."

"Beloved, let us love one another, for love
is of God; and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God.  He who
does not love does not
know God, for God is love." (1 John 4:7-8)

What can you do to express the love of God
to people around you
today?