
On a Swaziland mountain side in southern Africa is Eningeni, a leper settlement where a Nazarene mission station house those who are outcasts, a person with leprosy. Perched on that small side of the mountain an elderly grandmother hooked rugs for a small income.
A missionary nurse, arriving to relieve other staff in the small mission station watched in wonder as the aged woman with finger-less hands pushed a large yarn needle through the tapestry. It was a simple but fascinating geometric design, and when she finished the piece she placed the small carpet into the nurses hands.
"That is a display of love," her driver stated, "young men wear miniature versions of it around their necks, as a kind of love-letter." The nurse looked into the grandmother's large brown eyes and asked, "And, who is it that you love?"
The elderly woman quickly looked upwards and replied, "My Father in Heaven." Holding the small rug, the nurse asked her driver, "How in the world can she love a God who allowed all this sorrow and hardship to come her way?"
His reply was simple as he answered the young nurse, "Since the Holy Spirit placed the love of God in her heart, the fruit of that love has grown and now overflows in her! And, it is more contagious than any disease!!"
Friends, if the love of God can overflow in an old finger-less and feeble grandmother, sitting on the side of a mountain with a detestable disease, how much more should we give thanks to our Lord by loving not only the lovable... but the unlovable as well!