an elephants tale

I was watching Animal Planet the other night, my most favorite channel ever.  There was a program on about a very special orphanage in Africa that rescues, rehabilitates and releases baby elephants that are orphaned by the poachers who have killed their families for their coveted ivory tusks.  Many of these babies have witnessed their entire family being killed and are often traumatized and near death when the rescue workers reach them.

I thought about these elephants, and their welcome wagon of acceptance for the new elephants joining the sanctuary, the earth trembling beneath their feet as the stampede of seasoned veterans rush towards them, raising their trunks and trumpeting their welcomes as if to say “where have you been?! We have been waiting for you”! Wrapping their trunks around them, giving them gentle and loving nudges as if they were long lost friends that had finally found each other again, taking them under their wings, showing them around their new digs, being loving, gentle and kind towards the scared and traumatized newbie in their presence, thinking we could learn a little something from them.

As human beings we are bent towards selfishness, looking out for number one, but these elephants even in the nursery at just a few weeks or months old and have lost everything still gather outside the stables of the new arrivals, extending their trunks in loving kindness as if to say, “we know and we too remember and we are to here to help you”.  There is love, each one looking out for the best interests of the others, and many times that is the very thing that brings them through to the other side.   

Sometimes we can so caught up in our own lives, and our own problems we can forget to slow down and take a look around us, we don’t know what is behind the faces we pass on the street, a simple smile or hello could make someone who feels insignificant feel significant, give them the will to go on another day when they didn’t think they couldn’t.  Many times we don’t know the flood gates we may be opening when we show one act if kindness towards another person, but God knows, he put that person in our path for a reason, perhaps they needed that one simple act of acknowledgement to know that they still matter, perhaps it will encourage them to pay it forward and show kindness to someone else who may also need a little encouragement, and it continues to be paid forward.  Showing love and kindness not only lifts the spirits of another person, but it also lifts our spirits and warms our hearts, we can never go wrong by being kind and loving.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

John 13:34-35

“A new command I give to you: Love one another.  As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  By this all men will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.”

Rachel Olsen is hosting a blog carnival, on sisters in Christ, the link to her website is in my post below that I wrote about what having fellow sisters in Christ means to me.  I just had to write this post because to me it was such an example of what having friends can do, whether we are human or not.