A student told me about a man named Amram Kfir who was terminally ill. As he lay in the hospital, he sensed the end approaching and decided to write a farewell Facebook post to his friends on the social media platform. He wrote it, posted it, and felt ready to go.
But then something completely unexpected happened: People began to respond to his post; they began to shower him with love. His relatives, who were at his bedside, read to him the readers’ comments. They were caring replies, heartwarming, responses that showed sympathy and love, and his body began to respond. “Miraculously,” he said, “the body’s collapse had stopped, and gradually, I made my way back to life.”
Amram is doing well now; his body is recovering. He has gotten his life back. Indeed, as King Solomon said, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Prov. 18:21).
To be more precise, it is not the words that saved Amram, but the feeling that people expressed through their words. That feeling—of pure and simple love, without asking anything in return, but only that he would get well—brought him back. Everything the doctors tried had failed, but the love of Facebook friends, practically total strangers, melted his heart and healed his languishing body.
To me, this is a testament to what we can accomplish by simply changing how we relate to one another. We can transform our world. The relentless competition and growing animosity among us are the root of all our problems. They destroy not only our health, but our relationships, our economy, and our habitat, the planet that sustains us. They destroy our lives.
Words can kill, but words can also give life. What matters is what stands behind them. If we try to care for one another simply because this is how it is supposed to be, we will turn our world into Heaven even if we never say a word.
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