A love bear…

Isn’t just a fabric toy stuffed with fiber fill, painted-on large eyes and a big red heart, and a Brentwood Hills sticker ironed on the back.

A love bear becomes a soft toy to love and snuggle when a child is deathly ill and scared beyond our comprehension.

A love bear becomes a comfort to children who have lost their classmates in a devastating tornado in Oklahoma.

A love bear becomes a comforting thing to children who have lost their home and all they know because of violence and meanness from a sad family no longer together.

A love bear becomes a pillow for little heads in Baja for children who sleep on dirt and mats on hard floors.

A love bear is a source of comfort to a teenage boy who is homeless in a depressed place in our world. No matter that his is pink and covered with flowers and ribbons.

A love bear becomes the only toy children in Guatemala and Honduras have ever held and loved and touched as they lay their heads down at night with hunger and lost parents.

A love bear comforts children in parts of Africa where hopefully they will learn about Jesus from Will and his family so far from us.

A love bear is a sweet softness for our elderly friends in convalescent centers…perhaps reminding a grandmother of babies she once held and loved before her mind slipped away. Or to a grandfather a reminder of playing ball with his sons so very long ago.

A love bear came home to us at Brentwood Hills via a yard sale, and he is once again resting in some lonely child’s loving arms.

Love bears bring joy and happiness to our children here at Brentwood Hills whose parents may be very ill or passed to heaven, and even to those children who are very ill such as Jon Jon and Morgan…a source of comfort to each as time goes on.

Love bears are so joyful to those of us who are privileged to make them…

Written by Mary Carter, 2014