"What would it be like to be loved like this?
"I was lost in my imagination. Standing in front of a large picture of Jesus with a child in his lap and children laughing around him, I asked myself the question.
I would stare at the picture and get lost in it, imagining jumping into the scene and joining the children laughing with him and feeling his arms around me.
Jesus became my imaginary dad. My own father died when I was a baby.
I would stare at the picture and get lost in it.
I was standing in the hall of the orphanage and my fellow orphan girls joined me. We were little girls. aged 6 and 7 years old.
We had lost so much so we were like sisters in the orphanage. As we looked at the picture, I am certain we were filled with longing and wondering the same thing.
What would it be liked to be loved like this?"
(Excerpt from Outside the Gate by June Smith)
"Jesus knew that his hour had come to leave the world and return to his Father
He had loved his disciples during his ministry on earth,
and now he loved them to the very end."
TOWEL AND BASIN
He stripped himself
He picked up a towel
He filled the basin with living waters
Jesus knew his hour had come
For a dying world
He stooped down
No words can fully describe
How Jesus Christ set aside
His kingly robe
His kingly crown
For a dying world
He stooped down
Jesus Christ emptied himself
Sin demanded a sacrifice
For this reason
He had come
For a dying world
He stooped down
Love demanded a heavy price
Praise the Lord
He gave his own life
No greater love I have ever found
For my dying world
He stooped down
(Poem by June Smith, 2023)
"So he got up from the table, took off his robe, wrapped a towel around his waist,
and poured water into a basin. Then he began to wash his disciples' feet
Drying them with a towel he had around him"
"And since I your Lord and Teacher have washed your feet,
You ought to wash each other's feet."
(John 13: 4 & 14 NLT)