We are trusted to spread the spirit of love. Tenderness in judgment, the habit of thinking the best of one another, unwillingness to believe evil, grief if we are forced to do so, eagerness to believe good, joy over one recovered from any slip or fall, unselfish gladness in another’s joys, sorrow in another’s sorrow, readiness to do anything to help another entirely irrespective of self – all this and much more is included in that wonderful word love. If love weakens among us, if it ever becomes possible to tolerate the least shadow of an unloving thought, our Fellowship will begin to perish. Unlove is deadly. It is a cancer. It may kill slowly but it always kills in the end. Let us fear it, fear to give room to it as we should fear to nurse a cobra. It is deadlier than any cobra. And just as one minute drop of the almost invisible cobra venom spreads swiftly all over the body of one into whom it has been injected, so one drop of the gall of unlove in my heart or yours, however unseen, has a terrible power of spreading all through our Family, for we are one body – we are parts of one another. If one member suffers loss, all suffer loss. Not one of us liveth to herself.

— Amy Carmichael (1867–1951), Missionarin

Topics: Love, Church & Congregation, Relationships & Family

Amy Carmichael

Amy Carmichael war eine nordirische protestantische Missionarin und Autorin, die von 1895 bis zu ihrem Tod in Südindien wirkte. Bekannt wurde sie durch die Rettung zahlreicher Kinder vor ritueller Tempelprostitution und die Gründung der Dohnavur Fellowship, wobei ihr autoritärer Führungsstil und die strenge Abschottung der Gemeinschaft missionsgeschichtlich kritisiert werden. Heutigen Bibellesern begegnet sie vor allem als Beispiel praktischer Nächstenliebe sowie durch geistliche Texte über Hingabe, Gebet und radikale Nachfolge.

All quotes by Amy Carmichael (13)

Amy Carmichael

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