Loving the Unloveable

I commented on a post over at the Compassion blog about how cute the one millionth registered child was and how I just wanted to hug him.

One of the bloggers commented back that we need to remember the children we don't want to hug. Of course I felt a little bit ashamed for such a frivolous comment at first, but I knew he was right.

It's easy to love the loveable.

We have all sorts of ways of ranking people in the world--cool people, good people, authentic people, pretty people, good blogging people...ha.

In theory, it is easy to talk about loving our neighbor and knowing that Jesus wants this from us.

In practice, it is tremendously difficult to remember that love is not like. It can be hard to do things for people who get on our nerves every last waking second. It can be less than pleasant to treat others with the same respect, dignity, and courtesy that we wish to be treated with.

I think we have all felt like an outcast at times. Isn't it amazing that we have the power by help others not feel this way?

So I was reminded again today that Jesus loves the least among us, and so should we. It's our great honor to do so.

And so that's my final Compassion post and it really has little to do with the organization Compassion--other than that they are obviously practicing these very ideas by caring for children around the world and enabling us to join in the work with our dollars and our hearts.

Sponsor a child and join in the good fight.

(ETA: Krista let me know which area of Compassion I should send the 25 dollars to!)