Why do you care?

Why do you care about other people?

I want to investigate what really motivates people to give their lives away to others (aside from any other religious training/explanation). I was reflecting over my life - trying to remember the first time I really cared about somebody outside of myself (or my immediate family) and my thoughts kept returning to the day we first welcomed my brother Josh into our home.

I was 8 years old and it was 3:00 in the afternoon. School had just let out and I was searching the playground for my mother. I finally saw her, walking up the hill, with a bundle of blankets in her arms. I was too young then to really realize what that meant or why... but the little baby she carried in her arms would forever change my life and the way I experienced and gave love. That day I become Josh's oldest sister - not because I had to, but because I choose to.

Though the Colorado court system would officially recognize Josh as part of the Williams family three years later, I was his sister from the moment I saw him - a small and strange little baby needing a home. The amount of love I experienced for someone I had never met before shocked me. I realized I had the capacity to care for others in ways I never imagined or dreamed of before.

I care because Josh showed me I could. Before that, it was just an idea - something my parents and Sunday school teachers talked about endlessly. I have spent the last 18 years (since the day I met Josh) following this love - searching for it, longing for it, hoping for it. This love, that I now call Jesus, is what motivates and drives me. Though I can't always (and often don't) embody it - He is with me.

This is a much better answer than the one I gave to the person who asked me last week!