I’m reading another book about Mother Teresa. This must be the fourth book or so about her that I’ve read. This woman of God fascinates me. She so loved the poor. She gave up literally everything and devoted herself to loving others as she felt Jesus would do. She led by example and many young and older woman followed her lead even when it meant they had to choose a life of serious poverty for themselves.

There is so much Mother Teresa learned by living on the rough and poor streets of India. One of her biggest hearts desires was to love the unloved especially those who were dying and alone or orphaned. She felt that the greatest poverty was not the lack of things or food but the lack of love. Mother Teresa has quoted much on this:

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”

“Even the rich are hungry for love, for being cared for, for being wanted, for having someone to call their own.”

“I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love.”

“I try to give to the poor people for love what the rich could get for money. No, I wouldn’t touch a leper for a thousand pounds; yet I willingly cure him for the love of God.”

“If you judge people, you have no time to love them.”

“In this life we cannot do great things. We can only do small things with great love.”

“Intense love does not measure, it just gives.”

“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.”

“Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.”

“Let us not be satisfied with just giving money. Money is not enough, money can be got, but they need your hearts to love them. So, spread your love everywhere you go.”

“Loneliness and the feeling of being unwanted is the most terrible poverty.”

“One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.”

“Our life of poverty is as necessary as the work itself. Only in heaven will we see how much we owe to the poor for helping us to love God better because of them.”

“The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.”

“The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.”

“Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted according to the graces we have received and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.”

As I continue to serve the least of the least of these in the inner city of Memphis I pray that my heart will melt for their sake and mesh with those I serve. I pray that I will gain understanding and a heart like Jesus so that I too will be able in His power to selflessly serve those who struggle as Mother Teresa did. I am nothing a part from Jesus. It is He in me that causes me to walk into the streets and slum areas of Memphis and see it as a beautiful place with much for me to learn about and lots of hope to share. I pray that I never am too prideful or rich in the worlds eyes that I would be unable to humble myself and touch the face of Jesus or feel his kisses as I openly serve a needy child or family. It is Him I serve and His face I seek to know more.

I am thankful that He provides as He does for Asha’s Refuge. I know He has gifted and blessed others to come along side of Asha’s Refuge to help and I am so thankful for our volunteers and supporters. We, I, need your prayers and love. I ask for love overflowing as I need it to pour out into the sweet struggling, lonely and scared faces I meet. I am so thankful that the love of Jesus is never ending.