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On Nov 1st 2008 the headlines of the Daily Telegraph provided the usual testament to man's fallen nature. However, tucked away on an inside page was quite a different kind of story. It was about six-year-old Elke Wisbey who was born brain damaged and is unable to walk or talk. She has been equipped with a £17,000 machine that uses lasers to track her eye movements. When her eyes settle on an icon on the Smartbox, a pre-programmed voice speaks the word or phrase for her. The first time she sat with her mother Glynnis she focused on the icon, a heart, that said, 'I love you'. She repeated the words over and over again! Her mother at first thought that there was something wrong with the machine but then she realised the intent of her little, handicapped girl. Elke had waited so long and wanted so much to tell her mother that she loved her. She siezed the first opportunity she had of doing so.
Towards the end of my career as a teacher when I was feeling like a well-worn doormat awaiting consignment to the rubbish heap I wandered into a classroom during the lunch break. Sitting on desk was little Sammy. As I surveyed the scene she mouthed, 'I love you.' It is so heartening and reassuring to hear those three words. Even God is glad to be told, 'I love you.' As I thought further about the first message spelt out by Elke Wisbey I realised all that told us about her mother. She must have picked her little daughter up hundreds of times, hugged her, kissed her and whispered, "Elke, I love you." The apostle John writes in his first letter: We love him, because he first loved us. 1Jn4v19. We have many small evidences of God's love. One of my greatest treats in 2008 was to read, 'Blue Remembered Hills,' by the children's author Rosemary Sutcliff - a beautifully written recollection of childhood. Rosemary suffered from juvenile arthritis, known as Still's Disease, so you might think she hadn't got much to thank God for. However, she experienced many small delights like the first time she sat on downland turf. This is what she writes: Pink and white convolvulus smelling of almond paste rambled along the foot of my aunt's raw new fence; and the turf itself was not just grass, but a densely interwoven forest of thyme and scarlet pimpernel, creamy honey-scented clover and cinquefoil and the infinitely small and perfect eye-bright with the spot of celestial yellow at its heart; all held close to the ground less than an inch high ... . As a boy in the Suffolk village of Brockley I delighted in finding bird’s nests. What marvellous constructions they were. Some, like the nests of chaffinch and long tailed tit, were delicate constructions of feathers and moss. And the eggs - the deep blue of the dunnock, the sky blue and black spots of the thrush, the off white with purple squiggles of the chaffinch - were just thrilling - another one of God’s gifts to charm the eye and testimony to His love of beauty We have an annual reminder at Christmas of God's greatest love gift to mankind. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Jn3v16. Yet in spite of this we find it so difficult to tell God that we love him. We have lots of other things to say - that we are angry, disappointed, disillusioned, perplexed, distressed, dissatisfied and needy. Our prayers often fall short of being a vote of confidence! We need to pause sometimes, count our many blessings and say, "God, I love you." Why is that so hard?
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