God is love

Today my little girl turns eleven!!! I guess really she is not a little girl any more. I was just looking at a picture of her when she was a few days old. It seems like just yesterday she was my beautiful little baby girl, and now we are closing in on teenage years. Since Ashley's birthday falls on Valentine's day, last year I wrote about Ashley and what she has taught us about love. I wrote about how I learned the true meaning of the 1 Corinthians 13 type of love through raising Ashley. This year I want to write about what having Ashley in my life has taught me about other people. Having a child like Ashley has taught us so many things in life and changed our family so completely. So often you hear all the negative things about people. You hear how mean and unkind people can be to each other. We have certainly had our experiences of being hurt by people's reactions to Ashley. But for every bad experince, we have had many wonderful experinces. I have seen so many people go out of their way to be kind to Ashley and our family. I have seen great empathy, patience, and kindness to Ashley. We have had so many teachers, doctors, therapists, friends, and even strangers who have gone out of their way and reached out to her and us. There is no way we could ever begin to name or even count the many people who have touched our lives through Ashley. All the way from the passing comments made by strangers, that I will always carry in my heart, to the people who have spent years working with her. The Bible tells us we can see God through the people around us, I have certainly found that to be true. And God is love 1 John 4:8.