Teaching across Asia Pacific and heading for Latin America, I find myself sharing stories from a teaching partner who faithfully finished her race in this world 6 years ago. Former students and current students whose managers were taught and mentored by Midge Wilker, reminisce about her wisdom, her advice, her directness and how much she cared.
Midge referred to our students as “the kids” and was a mentor and role model to women across the world. She was my mentor as well. Teaching is incredibly rewarding, but it does have it’s trying moments. On more than one occasion, I have paused at the breakout room door of a contentious group and remembered Jesus’ attitude toward individuals to whom he was about to deliver a tough lesson,

“Jesus, looking at him, loved him …”

Jesus’ 3 year ministry is remembered for his caring, his living example of the power of love, his revealing to us directly, the nature of God – God’s loving kindness. Those three years in a life of an obscure itinerate rabbi have influenced more people over time than anyone else in history. In one of his last addresses to the disciples, he gave them a new commandment – to love one another.

We can enter into the abundant, eternal life Jesus offers. We can be filled to overflowing with the living waters of God’s love. Like Midge, we can partake in that that little bit of immortality, the remembrance of our caring and its impact on many lives. Like Jesus, we can pass on of the love of God and neighbor that lives in us, through us and beyond us, the image of God which made us, dwells in us and transcends us forever.  Read Matthew 22:34-40 and remember, God loves you UNCONDITIONALLY! 

Mike