Love With Your Hands

Mary Slessor grew up in Dundee, Scotland, and arrived in Calabar, in what is now Nigeria, in 1876. In parts of the region at the time, people feared twins as a curse. Newborn twins were often killed or left to die.

Mary went looking for them. She found abandoned babies and carried them home. Her mission house filled with children. In one case, she found a pair of twins and the boy was already past saving. She took in his sister, named her Janie, and raised her as her own daughter. Over the years she adopted several children, and she spent nearly four decades in the region until her death in 1915.

Mary could have preached against the practice from a distance. She picked up the child instead.

John Wesley’s General Rules told early Methodists plainly to do good. Love needs hands. Love shows up with food, a ride, a phone call, a listening ear.

You do not have to change a nation today. Someone near you needs one kind act. A neighbor feels forgotten. A coworker is carrying more than anyone knows. God’s grace reached you, and now God’s grace wants to reach someone through you.