To love and be loved is the greatest joy in life....

I think this is very true... and I saw it in the faces of many little kids today. At one of the orphanages that we've been working at, it brings me great joy to see recognition in the faces of the little kids when we walk through the gates again, another day that we've come. You see their faces light up as they start to know they're loved... deeply.

I read a quote by CS Lewis in The Four Loves that describes quite nicely the way I feel about this issue:

"To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal (I assume he means like a pet... or maybe for me a hippo). Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your own selfishness. But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless- it will change. it will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is hell."

I think that by choosing to love them and show them our love... we show them the Lord and choose to share Him with them. Because God is Love... (1 John 4:7-9)